Alice Evans and the Philosopher's Stone

A/N: Apologies to anyone waiting for more of my other story There all along, but this started going round in my head and wouldn't leave me alone till I started to write it down and I only have time to write one fic at a time at the moment. A slightly alternative take on the goings on at Hogwarts, I know initially some of it is the same as the books but this will change - if I decide to continue the story - so please R&R so I know whether to keep going.

Disclaimer: As always all characters, locations etc. (except a few which are obviously my own invention) belong to JKRowling - to avoid further confusion she's the one with heaps of cash and I'm not!

Alice stood well back from the edge of the platform fiddling nervously with the end of her plait. She was working up the courage to make her way through the swarm of people and onto the scarlet train churning out steam which drifted down and wound around the feet of those seeing off their children. As far as she could see witches and wizards - it seemed odd even to think the words - were heaving trunks into carriages, disgruntled owls were being passed through windows hooting balefully and she could have sworn that a boy had just passed her with a giant spider trying to escape from a shoebox.

Taking a deep breath she grasped her trolley firmly and began to push it towards the nearest carriage. Halfway there she felt a force collide with her, knocking her sideways and nearly making her lose hold of the trolley. Straightening up she turned to see who had jostled her and found herself staring up into a pair of cold grey eyes framed by a haughty face which was currently contorted with disgust. For several seconds she stood transfixed with terror before gathering up all of her eleven year old courage to open her mouth and apologise.

“Do watch where you're going,” the stranger sneered before she could get a word out and swept away, his cloak billowing out behind him. It wasn't until he had passed her by that Alice realised two smaller but equally blonde figures had been standing next to him, presumably his wife and son. Turning back to the train she fervently hoped that all wizards weren't as unpleasant as that one or all her anticipation would have been for nothing. Still she reasoned, as she tried to haul her trunk from the trolley, it couldn't be as bad as the Home.

As she struggled ineffectually with the heavy trunk, only narrowly missing her foot when one end crashed onto the platform sending her trolley skidding off at an angle, someone suddenly took the other end from her and lifted it with relative ease into the carriage and stored it on the rack.

“There you are, let me give you a hand with that.” For the second time in as many minutes Alice found herself gazing up at a stranger, this one however looked much more kindly than the previous one. The man had thick flyaway brown hair and kindly brown eyes which crinkled up around the edges when he smiled as he was doing now. Abruptly she realised he was speaking to her again. “My name's Bob Granger, you look a little lost is it your first year too?”

Typically she couldn't seem to find her tongue when she needed it so she just nodded mutely as she felt herself turning a similar shade to the train.

“Well,” he grinned at her, “it's my daughters first time to Hogwarts too and she doesn't know anyone else, perhaps you might sit together?” His expression turned hopeful as he waited for her response.

As she mumbled an embarrassed acquiescence she heard a voice pipe up from behind him. “Daaad!”

Bob Granger winked at Alice as he turned to the girl who had approached him with a woman who judging by their similarity could only be her mother.

“You don't need to go round finding friends for me.” The girl threw a humiliated glance at her father who smiled indulgently at her, “love this is…” He looked slightly discomfited as he realised he hadn't asked her name.

“Alice,” she supplied shyly.

“Love this is Alice, she's in your year. Alice this is my daughter Hermione.”

Alice peeped curiously up at the girl through her eyelashes as she reached to shake the proffered hand. Like her father the girl had a profusion of bushy brown hair which fanned out across her shoulders and swamped her tiny frame. Serious brown eyes regarded Alice warily at first but clearly she saw something in her face which made her smile, revealing teeth which were just slightly too large for her small face. Alice smiled tentatively back just as a whistle shrilled loudly from somewhere within the clouds of steam.

“Well darling you better get going.” Bob Granger began lifting a second trunk into the carriage as Hermione turned to hug her mother goodbye. Fleetingly Alice felt a stab of jealousy for this girl who had a mother to hug her goodbye and a father to carry her trunk for her, but with practiced ease it was quickly suppressed. She wouldn't want to wish her parentless state on anybody.

“Thank you for helping me with my case,” she blurted as the two girls hopped into the carriage and Hermione's father shut the door behind them.

“No problem Alice,” he smiled at her again, “happy to help.”

As the train began to pull away Alice went and sat down whilst Hermione waved enthusiastically to her parents until both they and the station had disappeared to be replaced by neat rows of houses flying rapidly past. She flopped down in the seat opposite Alice and immediately began to speak.

“So are you excited to be going to Hogwarts? I know I am. I was ever so surprised when I got my letter, my parents are muggles you see, but it's going to be fascinating. Are your family magic?”

“No.” She was just going to leave it at then but then she thought that this girl might think her rude so she elaborated. “My parents died when I was a baby, I was brought up in an orphanage.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” Hermione seemed momentarily set back by this revelation but it was only temporary. “So have you got all of your books and things then? I do, and I got some extra history books for background reading as well, it's all terribly fascinating. I read Hogwarts a History twice!”

Alice's normally closed face lit up; perhaps she would find a kindred spirit at Hogwarts after all. “I've read that too,” she enthused, “it didn't all make sense because I didn't understand some of the magical words but I think, I hope,” she amended, “its going to be good.”

Forgetting to be shy when talking about books, the two girls launched into a discussion about Hogwarts and the course work they were likely to receive. Alice was delighted to find that like herself Hermione had read all of the course books in fear that she would be behind. The two girls became so absorbed in their conversation that it came as a bit of a surprise when a cheerful witch with greying hair pushed under a white cap came round with a trolley laden with sweets and pasties of every description, all of them having some magical quality. Having mused over their choices for several moments the girls bought one sweet each and sat back down. Catching sight of Alice eyeing her Toothflossing Stringmints Hermione ducked her head as though embarrassed. “My parents are both dentists,” she offered by way of explanation, “old habits…” The girls' laughter filled the carriage as Alice offered her a Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Bean.

Once they had chewed their way through the entire packet and Hermione, after being dared to, had swallowed a suspicious looking blue bean which had turned out to be soap they decided it was time to change into their Hogwarts robes.

“I think they look quite smart.” Alice twirled with a giggle so that the robes spun out around her. She felt oddly at home with Hermione, even though she'd only known her a few hours.

“What House do you think you'll be in?” Hermione was using her reflection in the window to straighten her tie. “I'd like to be in Gryffindor of course, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad either. What's wrong?” She turned to see Alice biting her lip nervously and with a suddenly serious expression again.

“Nothing.” Alice smiled at her quickly, she didn't want to divulge her greatest fear which was that when it came to the Sorting she wouldn't be put anywhere and everyone would realise it had all been a big mistake and send her back again.

Further enquiry on Hermione's part was stalled however by the arrival of a round-faced boy at the door to their compartment who looked on the verge of tears. “Sorry, have you s-s-een my toad at all? I've looked in all the carriages and I can't find him anywhere, my Gran's going to go mental.”

The girls shook their heads. “We'll help you look if you like.” Alice offered, the boy's stammering shyness reminded her of herself when faced with something daunting.

“Yes of course we will, where did you last see him?” Hermione took charge with an imperious voice.

Alice and the boy trailed after her down the length of the train stopping at each compartment whilst Hermione grilled each occupant on whether or not they had seen the toad.

“What's your name?” she whispered to him as Hermione stopped to ask a set of red haired twins and the boy with the spider in the box.

“Neville.” He looked surprised she had even spoken to him.

“I'm Alice and that's Hermione, don't worry about your toad we'll find it,” she smiled encouragingly at him.

They had nearly gone the length of the train when they came across two boys sitting surrounded by sweet wrappers. They looked to be about the same age as Alice, Hermione and Neville and the taller one had a shock of red hair and a rat in his lap which he was brandishing his wand over. Without any preamble Hermione slid the door open and queried, “has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one.”

As a tiny part of Alice's brain admired her new friend for being able to speak to people so easily her eyes flicked to the other boy in the compartment and she stopped. There was something oddly familiar about him, but she couldn't quite place what it was. As everyone was watching the redhead who had begun to perform a spell at Hermione's request, Alice found she couldn't look away from the boy. His messy black hair stuck up in all directions and looked in need of a cut whilst slightly bashed spectacles, held together with more than a little Sellotape, covered the brightest green eyes Alice had ever seen; eyes which right now were fixed on the rat with amused curiosity.

Wanting to see her first evidence of magic, and afraid to be caught staring, she quickly turned her focus to the rodent too, but nothing happened.

“Are you sure that's a real spell?” Hermione scoffed, “well, it's not very good, is it?” She then launched into an explanation of her own research into spell casting which probably sounded as though she was boasting, but Alice had realised that she was just genuinely passionate about learning but had the unfortunate knack of making the explanation sound like a lecture.

“I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, and this is Alice and Neville, who are you?” She rushed to a stop.

“I'm Ron Weasley,” the redhead introduced himself with such a stunned expression that Alice couldn't help but giggle, clearly he hadn't felt the need to read as much as Hermione and she had and was now regretting it. The noise drew the attention of the boy with the black hair who studied her for a moment before saying, “Harry Potter.” He frowned slightly at Alice once more before Hermione began to reel off all of the books she had read about him in which left him looking more than a little flummoxed.

That must be why she had recognised him, Alice thought, Harry Potter's lightening bolt scar had been mentioned several times throughout the books she had read before leaving the orphanage. Her gaze travelled upwards automatically, but his forehead was concealed beneath a riot of coal black hair; perhaps she hadn't seen the scar then. So where did she recognise Harry Potter from.

She didn't get long to ponder it though because after ordering the boys to change into their school robes Hermione swept from the compartment dragging Neville and Alice with her. They continued to search the train for the rest of the trip, with Neville becoming gradually more dejected at his pet's continued disappearance. At last he mumbled something about having to face his Gran without it and, throwing one last grateful smile in Alice's direction, he scuttled off back to his compartment.

As he disappeared from sight Hermione turned back to her with raised eyebrows, “you would think he would take better care of his pet in the first place. I suppose he seemed like quite a forgetful type.”

Alice frowned at her, “I thought he seemed quite nice, just a bit shy and there's nothing wrong with that.”

“Oh I didn't mean it in a nasty way!” Hermione looked horrified at the very notion, “I was just saying - he seemed a bit scatterbrained.”

As they returned to their own compartment they heard a commotion up ahead and three boys, one of them Alice noticed was the blonde boy from the platform, came piling through the nearest door scrambling over one another in their haste to get out. They pushed past the two girls without a word, forcing Alice and Hermione to stand flat against the wall of the train to let them past as the other two were quite large.

“Well!” Hermione fumed after they had gone, “how rude. I should have thought they could have at least said excuse me.”

“I wonder what happened?” Alice walked towards the door they had come from as the bushy-haired witch continued to mutter darkly about wizards without manners.

“Is everything alright?” she asked as she stuck her head into the compartment where the two boys they had spoken to earlier, Ron and Harry, were both on their feet. They both looked around guiltily at the sound of her voice, but relaxed when they saw her concerned rather than accusatory expression. Hermione on the other hand was a different matter.

“What has been going on?” she looked suspiciously from one to the other, “have you been fighting, already?” she said fighting as though it were a curse.

“No” they chorused immediately. Not for the first time that day Alice found herself trying to stifle a giggle, something she rarely ever did, as she regarded the twin expressions which both boys adopted. She had a hunch that they could both manage to look guilty even if they had spent the day being perfectly saintly.

“Hmph.” Hermione made a sceptical noise. “Well you had better change into your robes; I expect we should be arriving soon.”

With a jolt Alice realised that it was getting dark outside and the familiar butterflies returned to her stomach. She tried to force the feeling away but she couldn't help the slight trepidation which came over her whenever she considered starting at Hogwarts and having to be sorted.

Following Hermione back to their own compartment the two girls began to gather up their things, but Alice couldn't seem to concentrate, her mind was an hour ahead envisioning the Sorting Hat being placed on her head. What if it was all a big mistake? Or a dream as she had thought when she had first gotten her letter?

In a daze she walked beside Hermione when the train stopped, gathering on the platform with all the other students in front of… Her eyes continued travelling upwards as she tried to find the top of the enormous man. He was so large and, well unkempt was the only word she could think of to describe him. He looked so fierce, but the twinkle she detected in his eye belied this impression somewhat; he didn't seem quite as terrifying as the blonde man on Platform nine and three-quarters.

The followed the giant down a narrow path leading away from the station and just when Alice began wondering if they had long to walk they rounded a corner to find a black, glassy lake rippling gently in front of them. The water stretched for as far as she could see to either side of the group and directly ahead of them, atop the sheer cliff face stood Hogwarts castle. Its illuminated windows threw a riot of light onto the seemingly bottomless lake which seemed to dance on the waters surface.

The first years made their way towards the waiting boats trying not to fall in the water, which was bound to be freezing, as they did so. Seeing Neville get shoved slightly by his over eager classmates Alice slipped over to him and wound her arm through his giving him a friendly smile as she led the way to the boat where Hermione had climbed in behind Harry Potter and Ron the boy with the rat. Hermione chattered excitedly to anyone who would listen about all of the castle's magical attributes as the boats glided away from the shore seemingly under their own steam. Before she was quite aware what had happened Alice found herself standing in a room just inside the castle having a stern looking elderly witch, who had introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, explain to them all about the House system within the school. As the teacher disappeared once more Hermione leant over and whispered in her ear.

“Do you think we'll be put in the same House?” she looked genuinely worried, “it's just it would be nice to have a - it would be nice to know someone,” she finished.

Alice tried to fight the delighted smile that was spreading across her face as she realised what Hermione had been about to say and failed. “I'm sure we will be,” she whispered back, “even if we aren't we can still be friends… if you like.”

Hermione grinned back at her. “Alright, friends.”

They were suddenly interrupted by several people screaming behind them. Alice whipped round searching for the cause of the terror to find herself confronted by twenty pearly figures emerging from the wall. Each one was partially transparent, as though you looked at the world beyond through a vapour, and they were all dressed in outfits from periods throughout history. She realised she was gawping at them and snapped her mouth shut quickly.

“Ghosts,” she heard Hermione breathe beside her, her voice tinged with awe.

“New students!” one ghost exclaimed happily, “about to be sorted I suppose?” No one answered him every single child in the room seemed to be struck dumb with fear and wonder.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Professor McGonagall sweep back into the room. “Move along now.” Her voice rattled out over the silent group and Alice was sure she saw several people jump in surprise at the interruption. A spate of mutterings broke out as the first years formed a line and followed the professor into the Great Hall.

Four long tables swarming with students dressed in robes like they were ranged the length of the hall and every single face seemed to be turned towards the first years. Hermione nudged her gently and pointed up towards the high arched ceiling which seemed to vanish in the middle where it seemed to be open to the night sky.

“It's bewitched to look like the sky outside,” Alice heard her friend tell the students around them, “I read about it in Hogwarts a History.” She smiled slightly; Hermione seemed to have as voracious an appetite for knowledge as she did.

Once the Sorting Hat had finished its rather ludicrous song, McGonagall began to call out the names of the students who walked, tripped or ran towards it to be sorted. Alice took several deep breaths to stop herself feeling sick; did everyone else feel as nervous? Glancing around she saw that Harry Potter looked rather green which made her feel slightly better, at least she wasn't the only one. Seeing him reminded her of the familiarity she had felt on the train and caused a twinge of frustration to break through her nerves. Where had she seen him before?

“Alice Evans.”

Her head snapped round so fast as the professor called her name that she cricked her neck. Had they reached her already? Time seemed to slow as she felt Hermione give her a gentle push towards the stool; it seemed to take an age for her to put one lead weighted leg in front of the other. Her attention was so fixed on the Sorting Hat that she missed the Headmaster sit forwards in his seat ever so slightly and what little blood there was drain from the Potions Master's face. Oblivious to the reactions of her future teachers Alice finally reached the hat, at which point time seemed to catch up with her again and she quickly sat down and jammed it on her head. She just wanted to get it over with.

“Well, well what have we here?” asked a disembodied voice. “Plenty of courage, but that's to be expected, and brains plenty of those too. Might do well in Ravenclaw. Shy, but has loyalty and determination as well. Where to put you? Well then, better be -” The hat paused for a second during which Alice shut her eyes and waited for the verdict. “GRYFFINDOR!”

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Disclaimer: You know the drill by now; unfortunately I'm not JKRowling so deal with it.

The rest of the feast seemed to pass in a bit of a haze for Alice; Hermione and the three boys from the train followed her into Gryffindor. She remembered little about the actual meal other than that it had appeared onto the plates from nowhere and tasted quite good. A rather pompous prefect, who turned out to be Ron Weasley's older brother, began to reel off exactly what they, as first years, would be expected to do this term. She was just beginning to fall asleep into her pudding when there was a sudden clamour as everyone got to their feet and began traipsing out of the Great Hall. Alice was so tired and focussed on getting to bed that she barely even noticed when a poltergeist began pelting Percy Weasley with walking sticks and by the time she had collapsed onto her bed in the dormitory she was barely conscious. The last thing she was aware before sleep claimed her were the other girls in the dorm exclaiming excitedly about the day.

Opening her eyes the next morning it took Alice a few moments to recall where she was. The scarlet canopy above her was nothing like the cracked and faded paint of the orphanage, and back there her bed certainly hadn't been as large and comfortable as it was here. Sitting up she stretched luxuriantly before pulling apart the curtains and swinging her legs out of bed. For a moment she just sat there letting her memories of the previous day wash over her trying to savour each one.

“Are you alright?” A high airy voice interrupted her reminiscing.

Alice sighed as the memories slipped away and she opened her eyes to find a girl with dull blond hair and bright pink pyjamas staring at her curiously.

“Yes.”

“Oh, you just had your face all funny like you were in pain or something.” The girl seemed unaware that this might be rude.

Considering her for a moment Alice finally asked, “you're Lavender Brown aren't you?” She wished the girl wouldn't stare at her as much, she could feel the blush rising to her cheeks.

“Yes, I can't remember your name though,” Lavender stated bluntly, “what was it again?”

Alice duly supplied it as she began to gather her robes and wash bag before going to the bathroom to get ready. By the time she was done, Hermione and the other two girls had woken up as well. Hermione of course was in a state of high excitement at the prospect of classes today, as Alice walked back into the room she seemed to be listing off all the spells she had learnt much to the obvious annoyance of the other girls. This continued as the other girls got ready and Hermione only finally fell silent as they made their way down to breakfast as she had to concentrate on not getting lost.

As everyone else ate their way through a mound of toast, eggs and bacon Alice slipped her hand into the pocket of her robes to check that her wand was still there. She still felt uneasy when she remembered the strange old man who had sold it to her in the shop. After what felt like an age she had finally found the right wand for her: willow, ten and a quarter inches with a phoenix feather core, at which point Mr Ollivander had looked her over closely with his wide, pallid eyes and muttered something about curious similarities. She was considering taking the wand out and trying to replicate the shower of sparks it had let off in the shop when she had picked it up when Professor McGonagall who was now also their Head of House came round to hand out the weeks schedule.

“Ooh!” Hermione whispered excitedly to her, “look we've got Herbology today… and a History of Magic; I should think that would be exciting.”

Alice smiled lightly at her friend who continued pouring over the parchment commenting now and then on the different subjects.

As it turned out History of Magic was probably the most boring class she had ever been to. The ghostly professor droned on for so long that soon Hermione was the only one who appeared to be listening. The highlight of the lesson came when Ron Weasley fell asleep at his desk and slid sideways off his chair, despite the fact that he landed quite loudly on the floor and shouted out when his friend Harry kicked him awake Professor Binns didn't seem to notice. The other classes were much more captivating but they had so much work to do that Alice soon found that her first week at Hogwarts was over and had turned into the second before she knew where she was. She decided that Charms and Transfiguration were her favourite subjects; the tiny professor who took the former spent their first lesson explaining wand movement and its importance in casting the correct spell and then demonstrated by casting a laughing charm on the entire class. Professor McGonagall, though very strict, became something of an idol for Alice. “I want to be like her when I grow up,” she whispered to Hermione after the teacher had finished explaining the complexities of her subject. When McGonagall praised the two of them at the end of the lesson for managing to affect their matches Alice blushed to the roots of her hair.

The Potions Master however was perfectly horrible, Alice kept her head down in the class so as not to attract his attention, but he ignored all Hermione's attempts to answer the questions and was outright mean to both Harry Potter and Neville. At the end of the lesson she saw tears in her friend's eyes and decided on the spot that she hated Professor Snape.

“It's alright Hermione,” she put her arm round her friends shoulders as they walked up the stairs from the dungeon, “I don't think it was anything personal he just picks on all the Gryffindors.”

At that moment Neville joined them to sympathise with Hermione. As she protested that he hadn't deserved to be picked on because he was rubbish at everything Alice saw Ron and Harry walk past talking excitedly about going to visit someone. In their wake they left a trail of students pointing, some less discreetly than others, and whispering behind their backs. The name Potter seemed to be on every pair of lips and Alice suddenly felt really sorry for him. She knew from personal experience what it was like to have no parents, but to know they had been murdered and to have everyone talk about you because of it on your first week at school must be hard. Hogwarts was complicated enough without teachers picking on you and pupils gossiping because you were famous.

As she had been musing the three of them were walking along a third floor corridor on their way back to the Gryffindor common room. Suddenly Alice stopped short, what was that noise? She looked around for the source but it seemed to have stopped and she couldn't locate where it had been.

“Alice, are you alright?”

She turned to see her friends standing a little way down the corridor looking back at her in concern.

“Yes, I'm fine, but did you…” she frowned as she realised where they were.

“What is it?” Hermione asked, “you know we can't hang around here, that's the corridor that's forbidden,” she pointed in the direction Alice had been looking. “Come on we'll get into terrible trouble.”

Reluctantly Alice followed her friends up to the common room but her mind was still on the mystery of the forbidden corridor. She was so preoccupied that she almost walked right past the gaggle of first years crowded round the notice board in the common room, it was only when she realised the Hermione and Neville had fallen back to join them that she stopped.

“What's going on?”

One of the girls turned to her, her face flushed with excitement, Alice remembered from the Sorting that her name was Parvati Patil. “The flying lessons start next Thursday, I can't wait it's going to be so exciting!”

“Flying lessons?” Alice echoed, a tiny part of her was terrified at this news but the group's enthusiasm was infectious and she suddenly couldn't wait for Thursday. Despite the dangers it posed being able to fly somehow felt right; it was a dream she'd had since she was little, soaring through the sky under a blanket of stars, the only thing she would have to be careful of was not to fall off and make a fool of herself. Spotting her friends lurking at the back of the group around the notice Alice walked over, “so, flying lessons that should be fun, all I'll need now is a black cat… you know a witch with a broomstick and… are you two alright?” Hermione and Neville just stared at her, both looking confused and horror-struck.

“I've never flown before,” Neville's admission was so quiet that she barely heard him.

“I'm sure you'll be fine, I've never flown before either and I'm sure Hermione hasn't.” Alice turned to her friend for confirmation and noticed that she looked distinctly green. “Hermione are you sure you're okay?”

The brunette took a deep breath before exhaling with a rush, “I need to go to the library, I'll see you later.” And with that she turned on her heel and dashed back out through the portrait hole the way they had come.

“Well, um…” Neville seemed to be trying not to cry, “I might just go and write to Gran. I'll see you later Alice.” With that he sloped off dejectedly and left Alice standing alone feeling thoroughly deflated at her friends' lack of excitement about the impending lessons.

With the rest of the afternoon free and no family to go and write to herself she briefly considered following Hermione to the library, but she probably would be so anxious about finding books on flying, which was what Alice assumed she was doing, that she wouldn't want to be disturbed. Suddenly Alice remembered the noises she had heard from the forbidden corridor, perhaps… surely it wouldn't hurt to go back and listen from the part of the corridor they were allowed in. If she could work out what the noise was then she could let her mind rest having solved the mystery. She couldn't get into trouble for just listening could she?

Dashing quickly up the stairs to the girls dormitory she stowed her book bag in her trunk and then raced back out of the room, nearly colliding with Lavender, Parvati and another girl in the doorway. Stammering an apology she stepped around them and continued on her way, their giggles echoing down the stairway behind her. Once out of the common room Alice paused a moment to try and remember the way to the forbidden corridor. There were so many different staircases and passages within the castle that it was easy for a seventh year to get lost if they weren't paying attention never mind a first year.

After two unsuccessful tries which led her to the Astronomy Tower and down a staircase which went nowhere she eventually found herself back in the corridor where she had heard the noise earlier. A solid looking wooden door sat at the end of the passage, surely the reason for the corridor being forbidden must be behind there? Checking there was no one in sight, they were probably all outside enjoying the last of the summer sunshine, she began to make her way stealthily along the corridor.

“Psssst!”

Alice froze every sense on the alert trying to locate the source of the sound. She could feel her momentary confidence and daring drain out of her as realised that someone had spotted her, but where were they?

“Over here.”

A heavy embroidered tapestry hanging just to her right twitched slightly as though moved by an unseen hand. Glancing around once more to make sure that this wasn't a trick Alice walked over to the tapestry and pulled it aside. Crouching in a passage set halfway up the wall and concealed by the fabric of the tapestry were two identical red-headed boys grinning at her their faces full of mischief and lit by the light of their wands.

“It would seem we took her by surprise George,” one of the twins said.

“Either that or she has some goldfish blood in her,” said the second.

Alice realised she was gaping at them and shut her mouth with a snap. Colour filled her cheeks as she scrambled for something to say. “Are - are…”

“Maybe she's just a bit slow?” The first twin winked at her as she scowled at this remark.

“No Fred I think your initial diagnosis of surprise was correct. Here.” One of the twins reached down and pulled her up into the space before she could protest. “Wouldn't want to get spotted hanging around where you shouldn't by Filch.”

“Not that we set much store by rules mind you. Rules are there to be broken just as Filch is here to play tricks on. I'm George Weasley by the way, this is my brother Fred.”

“Weasley? Are you Ron's brothers?”

“Aah ickle Ronniekins, our dear baby brother.” The twins both sighed with mock sentimentality at the same time causing Alice to giggle. “You've met him then?” the one called Fred asked.

Alice nodded, her usual fear around strangers eased slightly by the twins ridiculous manner. “He's in my class.”

“So what's your name then acquaintance of Ronald?”

“Alice Evans.” She looked behind them into the gloom of the passage noticing several boxes down by their feet. Suspicion began to form as she wondered what the twins were up to. “What are you doing down here?”

“We could ask the same of you.”

“In fact we will,” said Fred.

“I was… I was just…” Alice tried to think of an excuse as to why she would need to be in the forbidden corridor but couldn't think of one. They seemed like nice enough people, they wouldn't tell on her would they? After all they had been there too. “I was just curious, I wanted to see what was down here. You're in the forbidden corridor too.” She glanced at them with a mixture of nervousness and defiance.

“Well technically we aren't in the corridor so we're not breaking any rules. Yet.”

“Although we wouldn't recommend you being down here much longer.”

“Why not? What's in those boxes?” Suddenly both boys looked shifty and Alice knew her guess was right, they were up to something.

“It's a surprise.” George sidestepped her question.

“You wouldn't want to spoil the surprise would you Evans?”

“I - I guess not.” It was only fair after all, if they weren't going to tell on her then she shouldn't snoop. She had a funny feeling she probably didn't want to know what they were planning anyway.

“So you want to see what's behind door number one then do you?”

Alice looked at the twins in confusion for a second before she realised they were talking about the forbidden corridor and not the boxes.

“Maybe we should keep an eye on her Fred. Can't let her go off on her own it would be irresponsible.”

“You're right of course, a person as little as that might get knocked over by a doxy or a billywig.”

In the second it took Alice to decide whether to complain about being called little or point out that you didn't get billywigs in Britain the twins had jumped back down to the main corridor leaving her alone behind the tapestry.

“Come on,” she couldn't be sure which twin was speaking, “we can't keep an eye on you if we can't see you.”

Gathering up her courage she dropped down after them, she couldn't remember why she had thought this was such a good idea. Now that the initial rush of excitement had faded she could hear a voice in her head, which sounded remarkably like Hermione, telling her that this was a stupid idea. The old Alice Evans who was pathetically normal and boring would never have broken any rules like this; if the corridor was forbidden then surely it was for a reason. Then again, she reasoned, she wasn't normal any more, being a witch was about as far from normal as you could get.

Curiosity won out over caution and she walked over to the twins who were waiting for her by the door with a glance over her shoulder to make sure no one had appeared whilst they had been talking. As she approached one of the twins raised his wand and looked at her, she thought it was Fred but she couldn't be sure.

“Are you ready?”

She gazed steadily at him for several seconds before whispering, “Dumbledore said whoever went through here would suffer a painful death…” She let the unsaid question hang in the air as the twins considered her.

“I reckon he just said that to scare everyone.”

“Not us.” A wide grin spread across the other twins face.

“What's the worst that could happen?” They chorused.

Alice tried not to imagine, took a deep breath and nodded at Fred to continue.

“Alohomora.”

The lock clicked and Fred grasped the handle as a soft grumble sounded from within. As the door swung open Alice gasped softly. Of all the things she had expected to see this had never crossed her mind. Squashed up in a space much too small for it was the biggest dog she had ever seen, bigger than a dog had any right to be. Not only that but the animal had three heads and all six pairs of fevered yellow eyes were gazing right at the three intruders. Taking a reflexive step back as the twins whistled in what she could only assume was admiration she flicked her eyes over the rest of the dog; her quick mind took in the trapdoor under the dogs enormous paws even through the fog of fear at seeing something so utterly impossible. Suddenly the dog rumbling growl grew much louder as it took a step towards freedom and Fred quickly swung the door shut and muttered the spell to lock it again. As he finished he sprang away from the door as the giant body within thudded against it barking frantically.

“Come on,” he grabbed Alice's wrist and pulled her back towards the tapestry his twin following closely, “someone's bound to hear that we shouldn't hang about.” With the twins help she managed to climb back into the passage, where they all sat for a few seconds before George, his face covered in a gleeful smile, laughed softly. “Well that was interesting!”

“Very illuminating,” his twin agreed, “I'm surprised a huge thing like that hasn't escaped already, it must get so bored just sitting there all the time.”

“No!” Alice spoke before she could stop herself, she could see the twin's brains beginning to cook up some plan and she had to stop them. Who knew what havoc a beast like that could wreak if let loose in the school. “Please promise you won't go near it.” She would consider being embarrassed later. “Please?”

“Here that Fred I think she's concerned about us.” He elbowed his twin who was gazing thoughtfully at Alice. “What do you say?”

Fred mouth quirked upwards in a lopsided smile, “alright then we promise not to release the dog… or do anything to it,” he added seeing Alice's sceptical expression.

“Promise,” echoed his twin.

“You have green eyes you know.”

Alice started at this unexpected change of topic and blushed as she always did when someone took too much interest in her. Where had that come from? “They're not proper green; they're brown more than anything.”

“Nah,” he disagreed, “you've got green eyes.”

“Hazel at least,” George said. “Anyway you better scoot, better not to be found hanging around here in case a teacher comes looking.”

“Just go down there,” Fred pointed down the black passage.

“Take the first left -”

“Then go down the stairs -”

“And you should come out behind the portrait of Paracelsus on the first floor near the Hospital Wing.”

“Do you know how to make a light?”

Alice looked at Fred scathingly, what sort of fool did he take her for? She obliged by showing him that she did in fact know such a basic spell.

“Well bye then, thanks for not telling…”

“Likewise.” The twins beamed at her again. “It's always nice to meet a fellow explorer. We'll be seeing you Alice.”

Turning away she crept along the dark passage using her wandlight to alert her to any sign of the turning. As she walked her mind turned back to the dog behind the door, what was anyone in their right mind doing keeping that thing in a school? Without fear clouding her mind she let her mind turn over the mystery of the trapdoor. Did that mean the dog was guarding something? It made sense, she couldn't think of any other reason why Dumbledore, who seemed like a sensible wizard by all accounts, would have a dangerous animal in the castle otherwise. Finding the right turnoff she began to walk along it and was just beginning to think she must have gone the wrong way when she reached the steps and padded down them.

As soon as she reached the bottom she found herself behind the portrait the Weasley twins had told her about. Pushing it gently aside at first to check no one was coming she slipped out and then raced to the library to find Hermione.

Ignoring the looks of her fellow students as she careered up the final flight of stairs to the fourth floor she ran flat out along the passage and skidded to a halt in front of the first table in the library at which Hermione sat.

Her friend looked up at her red face in bewilderment. “What -”

Alice put her hand up to stop her as she gulped in deep breaths as quietly as she possibly could having just had the librarian glare at her as though running were a capital offense.

“Give me - a - second,” she finally managed to gasp out. She pressed at hand to her hammering heart and took a last deep breath before starting. “Hermione you are never going to believe what I've just seen.”

Hermione's bewilderment turned to a frown and she shut her battered copy of Quidditch through the Ages, marking her page as she did so. “What's going on?” she repeated.

“After Potions, do you remember I stopped to listen to something and -”

“You didn't go down the third floor corridor did you?” Seeing the guilt on her friend's face she looked appalled, “oh Alice, you could get into such trouble, you could get expelled!”

“I didn't get caught,” well, not by a teacher she added mentally, “but you'll never guess what's down there.”

“I don't want to know.” Hermione sniffed and picked up her book again.

“Oh come on Hermione,” Alice wheedled, now talking to the cover of the tatty green leather book, “if you don't want to know about a giant three-headed dog then that's fine by me.” She whispered this last bit so the fourth years at the next table wouldn't hear her.

The book lowered slowly to reveal Hermione's startled expression, her eye's bugged wide. “A what?”

“Three-headed dog.” Alice grinned at her friend's shock, “but that's not all; it was standing on a trapdoor, it's guarding something.”

“What do they think they're doing keeping something like that locked up in a school?” Hermione echoed her earlier thought. A thought seemed to occur to her and she glared fiercely at Alice, “you could have been killed,” she accused.

“But I wasn't,” she pointed out, secretly pleased that her friend was so protective of her. “I only saw it for a second and then we locked the door again.”

“We?” Hermione picked up on her slip of the tongue instantly.

Alice blushed so furiously that she swore her face was probably the same colour as her dark red hair. “I might have run into Ron Weasley's brothers, the twins.” She waited for Hermione's inevitable explosion.

“Alice! Those two are trouble, they're always getting points taken off by the teachers,” she seemed to regard this as worse than the fact there was a giant, triply vicious dog lurking just one floor below them.

“They're not that bad,” she protested, “I'm sure you'd like them if you met them. We didn't get caught,” she added in an attempt to pacify her friend, whose bushy hair seemed to be quivering in indignation.

Eventually she convinced Hermione that no trouble would come of her escapade no matter how dangerous it had been at the time and the two girls spent the rest of the weekend either finishing the homework they had been given or discussing what the dog could possibly be guarding.

Before she knew where she was her second week of her new life was almost over and the Gryffindors made their way down to the school grounds for their first flying lesson. Standing waiting for the teacher to arrive she noticed a Slytherin girl with short dark hair lean across and whisper to the blonde boy she had seen on the platform. Whatever she had said made the boy glance across at Alice and Hermione with a cruel sneer on his face suggesting to her that he was every bit as horrid as his father. Turning her attention to the teacher as she arrived and began the lesson Alice tried to put them out of her mind and concentrate on flying. It was with undisguised delight that she watched the broomstick jump up into her hand the first time she told it to, unlike poor Hermione's whose just rolled about on the ground a bit.

“I'm sure you'll get it eventually,” she sympathised knowing how long Hermione had spent pouring over any book linked to brooms in the library. She had spent so long in there this week that even Alice who loved books devotedly got fed up and left her to it.

As they were all about to actually fly for the first time, Neville seemed to lose control of his broom and began to rise quickly from the ground.

“Neville!” Alice tried to make a grab for his foot to pull him back down, but he had spiralled up out of her reach. The teacher began shouting at him which only seemed to increase his fear and his height from the ground. Abruptly several people screamed as he fell sideways off the broom and landed with a sickening crunch on the grass.

The two girls rushed over to him in concern, but were brushed impatiently aside by Madam Hooch who deftly checked him over before pronouncing a broken wrist and helping him off to the hospital wing.

“Do you think he's going to be alright?” Hermione gazed after him in concern, “he fell an awful long way.”

“I'm sure Madam Pomfrey will look after him,” Alice assured her though she too was concerned for Neville, he seemed nice and she was beginning to count him as a friend.

“Give that here, Malfoy,” the quiet, steady voice seemed loud in the sudden silence as the class around them silenced.

Turning around she saw Harry Potter and the blonde - Malfoy - facing off as the latter held something small and round in his palm. Alice recognised it as the Remembrall Neville had received from his grandmother that morning.

“Give it here!” Harry yelled as Malfoy took off on his broomstick and taunted Harry from the top of a nearby oak.

“No!” Hermione stepped forwards to intervene before Alice could stop her, “Madam Hooch told us not to move - you'll get us all into trouble.” Harry ignored her and kicked viciously off the ground. “What does he think he's doing?” she muttered sullenly, “he'll lose Gryffindor points at this rate.”

Alice nodded absently as her friend continued to rant, she was too busy admiring how effortlessly Harry seemed to fly, if only she could fly half as well as that then she would be happy. Several people screamed again in shock as Harry began to hurtle towards the ground, but he wasn't falling as Neville had been, Alice could see him speeding after the Remembrall on his broomstick as though he had been born there.

Before anyone was quite sure what had happened Harry was back on solid ground being thoroughly berated by a livid Professor McGonagall who seemed to have sprung from nowhere.

“How dare you - might have broken your neck -” She was almost incoherent so great was her fury.

Stung by the injustice Alice piped up, “It wasn't his fault Professor -” Even as her favourite teacher told her off and Ron Weasley spoke out in his friends defence, Alice marvelled that she seemed to be losing some of her shyness, perhaps there was something in the air at Hogwarts.

“Potter, follow me, now.” She returned her attention to events in front of her in time to see Harry slouch off after McGonagall looking miserable.

Malfoy on the other hand looked elated. “Well I didn't think Potter would last long, but to not even make it two weeks before getting expelled; that must be a record.”

“Shut your face Malfoy,” Ron grunted as the Gryffindors turned and went back to the castle having totally forgotten the excitement they had left with half an hour ago.

A/N: So what do you think? Please R&R (and thank you to everyone who did for the last chapter too.) Also, I love the Weasley twins so they will probably feature more in this than they do in the books :) just thought I would mention it…

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To Alice's surprise Harry Potter was at supper that night, not looking the least upset by the days events, on the contrary he spent the entire meal talking excitedly to Ron and briefly the twins, who winked conspiratorially at Alice, before Malfoy turned up to gloat, his ever present bodyguards - or that was what they looked like - hovering behind him.

“What are you staring at?” Hermione looked at her impatiently.

With a stab of guilt Alice realised that she had been ignoring her friend for the past five minutes and Hermione had clearly been talking to her. “Sorry, I was miles away.”

“You've been looking at Harry Potter all night, what's wrong? You don't -” Hermione looked scandalised, “you don't have a crush on him do you, after today?”

“No!” It was Alice's turn to look horrified. “No. I just know I've seen him somewhere before, it's been bugging me since we started school and I can't figure it out. He looks so familiar.”

Hermione looked down the table at him and his red-haired companion and shrugged. “I don't know, maybe it's just because you've read about him. Are you finished?”

Alice nodded and followed her friend as she rose and began to make her way along the table walking round Malfoy who was still talking to Harry and Ron. Alice caught the last few words they were saying and so, clearly, did Hermione.

“Hang on a second.” She pulled Alice to a stop and turned back to speak to the boys. “Excuse me.”

Alice winced at her friend's brazenness.

“I couldn't help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying -”

“Bet you could,” Ron muttered ignoring the frown Alice threw in his direction for being rude.

“- and you mustn't go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you'll lose Gryffindor if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really very selfish of you.”

“Hermione,” Alice whispered as she tried to drag her friend away, “it's none of our business.”

“You're right there.” Harry quipped as he glanced at her, half in annoyance and half with a curiosity she couldn't fathom.

“Goodbye.” Ron turned his back on them and resumed shovelling steak-and-kidney pie into his mouth.

“Well that was rude.” Hermione stormed as they made their way up to the common room, “I try to give them some friendly advice and they throw it back in my face. I hate Ronald Weasley.” She glowered darkly and stomped through the portrait hole. “I've a good mind to wait for them tonight and stop them leaving.”

“Don't do that Hermione, it's really not worth it, if they're stupid enough to go and lose points then let them, we can always earn them back later. Professor Flitwick is giving a test next week we could get some for that.”

“That's not the point, we shouldn't have to. Midnight duels! Of all the ridiculous, irresponsible things… Alright.” She conceded as Alice continued to look at her expectantly, “I promise not to wait up for them, happy?”

“Ecstatic.” Alice linked arms with her and walked her up to the dormitory.

The next morning as the girls came down the main staircase to the Entrance Hall Hermione peered over the banister at the hourglasses displaying the house points. Suddenly her legs seemed to fail her and her knuckles whitened as she gripped the banister for support. “Oh no,” she moaned, “we'll never make that up. I told you we should have stopped them.”

Looking to see what had caused her friend such concern Alice inhaled sharply. Where all the other Houses had a reasonable sprinkling of gems in the lower bulb of their hourglass, Gryffindor had - none.

“They lost them all,” Hermione was moaning. “Now we'll never win the House Cup, they've lost all those points I won for knowing about Switching Spells too.” She seemed on the verge of tears as she considered this.

Much as she cared about how her House faired, Alice was more concerned about her friend's extreme reaction to losing points. Leading Hermione gently into the Great Hall she sat her down well away from where Ron and Harry were sitting trying to avoid the glares of their fellow house mates with little success. Eventually she coaxed her friend into eating something, but Hermione just seemed to want to be left alone so grabbing a piece of toast Alice braced herself and went to sit next to Harry. Both boys looked at her in surprise, which was understandable as everyone else within spitting distance was treating them as a pariah and here she was actively seeking them out.

“So what happened then? I take it you got caught?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded glumly, “Filch.”

“Ouch,” she winced in sympathy, she hadn't met a single student yet who didn't hate the sour caretaker. “How did he find you?” she ventured tentatively.

“Malfoy set us up.” Ron's reply was savage. “He tipped off Filch then didn't show up. Coward.” He stabbed viciously at his bacon and chewed it morosely.

“We ran for it,” Harry continued, “ended up getting lost down the third floor corridor, the door was locked and he cornered us after Peeves gave us away. It's just as well McGonagall believed we weren't down that way deliberately or I think she would have probably expelled us. She was so mad. As it was she docked us fifty points each and gave us a detention.”

“It - wash - shcary.” Ron added around his mouthful of bacon.

“I suppose Hermione did try to warn us.”

“Boss us around you mean.” Clearly Ron didn't appreciate the interference; ignoring the blistering look Alice threw at him and her snapped she was only trying to help he returned his concentration to his plate.

“Is she all right?” Harry nodded down the table to where a pale faced Hermione was picking at her porridge.

“I think she's in shock, she saw how many house points you lost.”

Yeah,” a pained expression crossed his face.” I'm really sorry about that.”

“She'll be fine eventually. Just needs time to recover is all.”

Turning back to Harry she decided to ask him the question that had been bothering her for two weeks. There really must be something about Hogwarts that was making her braver. “Harry, sorry - do I know you from somewhere? Before Hogwarts I mean, you look really familiar.”

“I know what you mean, I thought I recognised you on the train.” He frowned for a second as he thought. “You're not from Little Whinging are you?”

“Little where? No I was brought up in an orphanage in Oxford.”

“Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise.”

“It's alright,” she shrugged, “I don't remember my parents and the Home isn't that bad.”

“I don't remember mine either.” He looked suddenly sad before he covered the moment by grinning at her, “but anyway I have no idea where I know you from, perhaps we met in a past life?”

“That must be it,” she smiled as she got to her feet. “Well I'll see you in class.”

She returned to Hermione who seemed to have decided both that her porridge wasn't worth eating and that she, for some reason unknown to Alice, needed to go to the library before class. As the two girls walked out of the Great Hall they heard a commotion behind them.

“I wonder what that is.” Alice stood on her tiptoes to get a better look at the long package six owls had just delivered to Harry.

“Who cares?” Hermione sounded bitter as she stalked towards the staircase. With a sigh Alice steeled herself for an uncomfortable day and followed her to the library.

Hermione's birthday arrived six days later and to celebrate the Alice bought her the biggest box of chocolate frogs that she could find and the girls spent the evening sharing them by the fire in the common room whilst they did their Transfiguration homework.

A week later the Gryffindors had their second flying lesson, with the exception of Neville who Madam Hooch felt would gain more benefit by simply observing his classmates. Hermione managed to hover several feet off the ground, but remained clutching the broom looking completely terrified as Alice soared above her feeling elated. Being on a broom felt right, it was as though something had fallen into place and filled a hole that she never even knew was there. She felt the wind rushing past her face as she pushed her broom higher only to be brought back down to earth with a jolt by the sound of Madam Hooch shouting at the students to come back. Much to her delight however the professor merely split the class into to groups, those who could clearly handle a broom, of which Harry, Alice and Ron were part, and those who needed extra help, much to Hermione's humiliation. She spent the rest of the hour flying loops around the grounds and playing tag with Parvati and Sally-Anne Perks, the fifth Gryffindor girl, before all too soon the lesson was over. Alice remained on a high though, chattering incessantly to Hermione about brooms for the rest of the day, which was an odd experience in itself as, like giggling, chattering was something she had never really done before.

Much to Alice's amusement her friend had decided that the best way to punish Harry and Ron for losing all Gryffindor's house points, and more, was by ignoring them completely and by doing fantastically well in all her classes just to rub their noses in the fact that she could get house points by doing so. Her logic may have been slightly flawed, and neither of the boys seemed much affected by it, but Alice couldn't help but admire her staying power, she managed to keep it up for nearly two months without exception. The only down side was that her increased persistence in answering every question in class, which, Alice reasoned, she would probably have done anyway, started to annoy all of the other students.

On the morning of Halloween they were paired up in Charms to practice making objects levitate. Much to both parties clear distaste, Ron and Hermione were paired together whilst Alice ended up with Neville. Alice already knew she could do the spell, she had practiced it secretly in bed with the curtains pulled shut the night before, she hadn't even told Hermione as rule breaking was a bit of a sore point with her at the moment. As a result she spent most of the lesson unsuccessfully trying to teach Neville how to do it, gently correcting his pronunciation and adjusting his wand movements to no avail. Part of magic was the belief you could perform the spell and Neville had no self confidence whatsoever.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hermione make her feather soar several feet into the air much to her partner's chagrin, and suppressed a grin.

By the end of the lesson Neville's feather was no nearer to flying than he himself was and after declining her invitation to walk to the next class with them he walked out of the classroom on his own.

“Did you see that Alice?” Hermione was positively brimming with excitement as they left Charms, “I managed to levitate it five or six feet at least! That's quite good for a first try.”

Alice was about to open her mouth to reply as they heard a voice from just ahead of them exclaim, “it's no wonder no one can stand her. She's a nightmare, honestly.” It was Ron speaking and it was all too clear who he was talking about. Torn between wanting to punch Ron and making sure that her friend was alright she turned to find Hermione frozen to the spot with tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Hermione,” she began, reaching out a hand to comfort her, but her friend brushed it off and ran off into the crowd that filled the corridor before she could say another word.

Unable to follow her through the throng of people Alice rounded on Ron. “What did you say that for? She's really upset now and it's all your fault. Can't you see she only wants to do well? You're horrid Ron Weasley. You should go and apologise right now.”

Startled by her outburst Ron looked dumbfounded before spluttering out, “well, I only meant that… the thing was that… she wasn't meant to hear,” he finished plaintively.

“So? Find her and apologise,” she threatened before whirling away to her next class hoping to find Hermione there and comfort her.

But Hermione wasn't in the next class, or any of the others after that. Alice spent the whole of lunchtime looking for her and all the time between classes and supper. Eventually however her stomach called her to the Great Hall. It wouldn't do Hermione any good if she passed out from hunger whilst looking for her, and there was a chance she might be there anyway. She wasn't and Alice was just about to wrap a chicken wing in a napkin to eat on her search when Professor Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher bolted into the Hall and ran the length of the room before collapsing in front of Dumbledore and gasping out, “Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know.”

Suddenly the room was in uproar as hundreds of students clamoured for an explanation. Dumbledore eventually managed to gain silence by firing off several purple firecrackers from his wand and ordered every pupil back to their dormitories. As people began to push past her, Alice caught sight of the Weasley twins and fleetingly wondered whether they had let the troll in, but she quickly dismissed the thought, they were reckless not stupid.

Dashing into the Great Hall she spotted Harry and Ron on the stairs and pushed her way through the confused crowd towards them. “Have you two seen Hermione?”

“This maybe isn't the time to ask me to apologise.” Ron replied scathingly.

“I don't care about that just now,” she stumbled sideways as several students stampeded past them, but Harry caught her before she fell. “Hermione's missing, I haven't seen her all afternoon and she doesn't know about the troll!” She tried not to let the panic she was starting to feel show in her voice.

“We'll help you find her.” Harry looked expectantly at his friend.

“Oh, all right.” Ron snapped. “But Percy'd better not see us.” Quickly so as to avoid Ron's brother they ducked down and scurried up several flights of stairs before finding themselves in a completely deserted corridor, they had just turned a corner and were beginning to check the classrooms when they heard footsteps hurrying along behind them.

“Percy.” Ron hissed pulling the other two behind a large stone griffin.

It wasn't Percy however, it was Professor Snape, looking haughty as ever and stalking down the corridor with his usual bat-like presence.

“What's he doing here?” Harry whispered in her ear. “Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?”

“Search me.” Ron muttered helpfully.

Alice just shrugged; she had more pressing things to worry about at the moment. Like whether or not a huge, violent, blundering troll had crossed paths with her friend. Hermione might be brilliant, but she was still only twelve.

“He's heading for the third floor.” Harry seemed ready to follow him before Ron stopped him.

“Can you smell something?” The others gagged as the smell hit them.

“The troll!” Alice hissed she pointed down to the end of the corridor where it had emerged into a patch of moonlight. It was without doubt the ugliest thing she had ever seen.

“Quick,” Harry said as it disappeared through a doorway, “we should lock it in.” The two boys led the way towards the door and Alice hung back as they turned the key triumphantly. The boys ran back to where she was standing and she had taken two steps back up the passage when she heard a blood curdling screech coming from the room they had just locked.

“Oh no,” Ron had gone deathly pale.

“Hermione!” Spinning she dashed back to the door and fumbled with the lock, the boys just a few paces behind her. As the three ran inside they saw Hermione cowering in a corner trying to keep as far away from the troll's flailing club as she could. It seemed to have managed to do significant damage to the bathroom already as debris littered the room. As the club connected with one of the cubicles splinters of wood exploded through the air with deadly force to join the jagged shards of ceramic already cast across the tiles and it was only luck that prevented any of them from being injured

“Confuse it,” Harry yelled lobbing a tap at the monster, it missed but his shout was enough to attract the troll's attention which gave Ron an opportunity to get round the other side of it and throw a pipe at it. Together the two boys began to draw the troll away from Hermione. Alice raced over to Hermione trying not to slip in the puddles of water which had sprayed from the broken sinks.

“Hermione come on,” but she was too scared to move and Alice didn't have the strength to drag her back to the door. As she turned to see what had happened to the boys she saw the troll back Ron up into a corner and then from nowhere Harry threw himself onto the trolls back and - whether deliberately or not she wasn't sure - stick his wand up its nose.

In desperation Alice cast around for something to use as a weapon, seeing the troll almost knock Harry out with the huge club it carried gave her an idea. Raising her wand she tried to remember how to do the spell and prayed to anything that was listening for this to work.

“Wingardium Leviosa!” The club flew out of the trolls hand and hung suspended above its head for several seconds before she let it fall with a loud crack. The floor trembled as the troll keeled over sideways, sending Harry flying across the room, and landed with a thud. For a moment no one said a word.

“Are you alright?” She called across the room to Harry as he extricated himself from the shattered remains of a cubicle.

He raised his hand to signal the affirmative.

“Is it - dead?” Hermione's soft voice asked.

“I don't think so, just knocked out.”

“How about you Hermione?” To Alice's surprise it was Ron who asked. “Look,” he ploughed on, not waiting for an answer, “I'm really sorry about what I said before. Just so you know. Sorry.”

Before Hermione could respond several doors slammed and Professors McGonagall, Quirrell and Snape burst into the room.

As it turned out things went better than Alice could have expected, instead of detentions as she would have envisaged after such serious rule breaking, especially considering the boys' previous record, they were each awarded five points for tackling the troll. All except Hermione who, much to Alice's surprise claimed responsibility for the whole incident and lost five points. After a stern telling off, the Professor sent the students back to their dormitory with a warning not to try sneaking off anywhere else.

The next day the four first years all sat together at breakfast; at first very little was said as they got over their initial, and in Alice's case chronic, shyness. By the time they all left the table they were much more comfortable with each other and Harry, Ron and Hermione were chatting as though they had known each other for years with Alice throwing in the occasional comment when she thought it would be least noticed. As the day continued she re-evaluated her first impression of the boys, before she had disliked them for being mean to Hermione but now that her friend seemed to have forgiven them for it she could see that they weren't that bad. Harry was really nice despite what he'd been through and the fact he was famous and once you got past Ron's repulsive way of eating and ignored some of the stupider things that came out of his mouth he was alright too. After all they had helped rescue Hermione.

Over the next few days they became fast friends and when Harry told them in confidence that he was playing seeker on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, a feat of which Alice was desperately envious, she traded secrets by telling the boys about the three-headed dog she had seen with the twins.

“Why didn't they tell me about it?” Ron complained on learning of his brothers' involvement.

“They probably just didn't want someone to overhear them telling you,” Hermione placated as she conjured a bright blue flame inside a jam jar to keep them warm in the courtyard.

“I still think they could have told me,” he grumbled.

The others laughed, but Harry quickly grew serious again. “You think it was guarding something?” He shot a significant look at Ron.

“What?” Hermione couldn't stand mysteries. “What do you know?”

“Well when Hagrid, the Gamekeeper, took me to Diagon Alley to get my school supplies in the summer we went to Gringotts.”

“This wasn't the day of the break in?” Alice asked, a suspicion beginning to form as to where this story was going.

“Yes,” Harry looked at her excitedly. “The article about the break in said that the vault had been emptied earlier that day and while we were there Hagrid took a package from one of the vaults, leaving it empty. He said it was Hogwarts business. Very secret. We thought it had been moved to the school. We must have been right,” he finished triumphantly.

“Do you think You-Know-Who's behind it?”

“Voldemort!” Harry and Alice corrected in unison before looking at each other in surprise. Alice had discovered that people in the wizarding world hated saying Voldemort's name which in her opinion was a ridiculous superstition, even Hermione didn't say it. Last week she would have thought Harry would be the last person who insisted on saying it, but now that she knew him slightly better she realised that he saw it as normal too.

Both Ron and Hermione had gone pale at the mention of his name but Hermione was the first to recover as her quick brain began to turn over the possibilities. “He could be, if he was strong enough I suppose, everyone says he isn't but I think it's foolish to assume that don't you?” She continued, without waiting for an answer, in what Alice recognised was her thinking out loud mode. “It depends what the package was, did Hagrid give you any clues Harry? What did it look like?”

Harry measured a two inch space between his hands. “It was about that big and wrapped in brown paper. All Hagrid said was that it was more than his job was worth to tell me what it was.”

“It must be quite valuable then,” Hermione mused, “or very powerful.”

Their conversation was cut short at this point by Snape appearing in the courtyard and docking five points from Harry for taking a book outside. Nevertheless they continued discussing the package the dog was guarding on and off for the rest of the day, but as supper drew closer Harry grew quiet. His first Quidditch match was tomorrow and the nerves were starting to get to him. Ron tried to cheer him up in the common room that night by assuring him that the Slytherin team were rubbish and that his brothers, who it turned out were on the team too, would pound them to dust. It didn't seem to help.

Finally giving up on trying to settle Harry disappeared to ask Snape for his book back and the others carried on with their Charms homework. He wasn't gone long however as ten minutes later he came flying through the portrait hole, bursting with the news that Snape had injured his leg.

That night when the others had gone to bed Alice and Hermione sat up in the dormitory discussing the revelation.

“I know the boys think he was trying to get by the dog, but I don't think he could have been, do you?” Hermione was sitting at the bottom of her bed, talking in a whisper so as not to wake the other girls. “I mean I know he's not very nice, but he's not stupid. You'd have to be mad to try and tangle with that dog.”

“Are you saying I'm mad?” Alice joked, her eyebrow quirked upwards in amusement.

“No, no, of course not. Besides you didn't know it was there.”

“Maybe Snape didn't either.”

“But he's a teacher. Surely Dumbledore would have told them -”

“It depends how big a secret it is.”

“I suppose,” Hermione seemed thoughtful, “but if he did know about it I can't imagine he was trying to get past it can you?”

Alice shrugged, if she was honest she wasn't sure. The evidence certainly seemed to be against him, but she didn't really want to judge her teacher without proof, even if he was particularly horrid.

“I hope Harry does well tomorrow,” Hermione moved back to her own bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin, “he's so nervous about it.”

“What are you reading?” Alice asked as Hermione struggled to lift an enormous old book onto her knees.

“It's a compendium of major magical occurrences for the last eight hundred years. It's very interesting, I'll give it to you when I'm finished if you like.”

“Alright,” Alice smiled at her friend in the gloom as she snuffed out her candle leaving only Hermione's wand light for illumination. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

-->

Disclaimer: As always all characters etc are the property of JKRowling, if you don't know that by now then you've probably wandered onto the wrong website.

“What's happening?”

“Something's wrong, one of the teachers should do something.”

“Did something happen to it when Flint blocked him?”

All around her Alice was surrounded by a hum of concerned voices. Every eye in the stand was fixed on Harry as he tried to cling desperately to his bucking broom with increasing desperation. She had her fingers crossed tightly in one pocket and her hand curled tightly around her wand in the other trying to run through every spell she could think of that might stop Harry falling to what would surely be a very nasty death.

“Can't have,” this was from Hagrid, the giant of a man that she had just met properly for the first time that day but already felt great affection for, even if he did scare her slightly. “Can't nothing interfere with a broomstick except powerful Dark Magic - no kid could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand.”

Alice felt herself go cold at his words. She turned to Hermione who was standing next to her wringing her hands. “Snape!” she hissed at her.

Comprehension flashed across Hermione's face as she grabbed Hagrid's binoculars and scanned the stands opposite them.

“He's doing something,” she stated as she handed the binoculars to Ron, “jinxing the broom.” She looked at Alice for a second, who was able to tell exactly what she was thinking.

“Go,” she nodded in encouragement. With that Hermione disappeared through the crowded stand leaving Alice, Ron and Hagrid gazing anxiously upwards. “Hang on Harry, help's on its way.”

After what seemed like an age she saw Snape jump out of his seat, his robes seemed to be on fire, knocking several teachers over in the process and Harry's broom resumed its normal temperament. Hermione had done it, she smiled in relief and her grin widened as she saw Snape trying vainly to stamp out the flames licking at his cloak.

Harry began a speedy descent to the ground but just as the crowd began to relax again he clutched at his throat and landed with a thud on the pitch. Alice clutched at Ron's robes; had Snape done something worse to him?

“What's going on?” Hermione had returned.

“I don't -”

“He's caught the Snitch!” Ron almost deafened her with his jubilant bellow. “We won!”

Sure enough Harry stood on the pitch waving a tiny golden ball above his head and grinning like an idiot. At Ron's shout the stand erupted around them.

In the ensuing chaos they managed to make their way down to the pitch, which wasn't difficult with Hagrid carving out a path ahead of them, to find Harry. He was still grinning from ear to ear, but Alice thought he looked rather pale. Beneath her immediate concern however she felt a simmering fury whenever she thought of what Snape had tried to do to him, never mind that he was a teacher, the days events had certainly shown his true colours.

“Come on Harry, let's get you some tea.” Hagrid swept the four of them up and herded them off to his hut where they proceeded to fill Harry in on events in the stands. Hagrid seemed appalled at their theories on Snape, but when they told him why he nearly had a fit.

“How do you know about Fluffy?”

Alice snorted into her mug. Fluffy? There had been nothing Fluffy about the monster she encountered.

“- bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year,” Hagrid was saying. “Lent him to Dumbledore to guard the -”

“So he is guarding something?” Alice asked curiously.

“Something that was in vault seven hundred and thirteen at Gringotts perhaps?” All four of them leaned intently towards Hagrid who tried to avoid their probing gazes.

“I can't answer that. That's top secret that is,” the little they could see of his face flushed scarlet which was as good an admission as they were going to get.

“But Snape's trying to steal it,” Ron stressed, “surely you can tell us if it's in danger?”

But Hagrid would have none of it; even when Hermione, who also seemed to have revised her opinion on the Potions Master, reiterated the fact that he had tried to kill Harry he flatly refuted it.

“I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong!” Alice couldn't help but wonder what the dog was guarding that made Hagrid so convinced of this and she could tell that similar thoughts were being entertained by the others. Hermione looked frustrated by Hagrid's insistence, whilst Ron and Harry were torn between their faith in Hagrid and their furious belief that they were right. “You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel -”

“Aha!” Harry exclaimed pouncing on Hagrid's slip, “so there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?”

“Ugh! Merlin's beard, away with yeh. I've said far too much already. Go on away with yeh,” he repeated as Harry and Ron seemed about to protest.

Reluctantly they made their way out of Hagrid's hut and started back across the grounds to the castle. The minute they were out of earshot however they resumed their conversation.

“So what do we know about what the dog's guarding then?” Harry asked.

“Well,” Hermione began to tick things off on her fingers, “we know it's small, very valuable if it needs to be kept in Gringotts and Hogwarts. We know someone's after it -”

“Snape,” Ron interjected.

“Probably. We know someone's after it, because they broke into Gringotts the day Harry was there and Dumbledore needs Fluffy,” she struggled to contain her amusement, “to guard it. And we know Nicolas Flamel is involved.”

“But who's Nicolas Flamel?” Ron looked expectantly at the girls for answers but it was Harry who replied.

“I'm not sure, but I know I've read his name somewhere before, if I could just remember then maybe it would give us a clue.” His forehead creased as he concentrated.

“We should go to the library,” Hermione declared and Alice laughed at the sudden look of consternation on Ron's face.

Alice and Hermione spent most of their free time for the next month in the library trying to find some sign of Nicolas Flamel, with very little luck. Harry helped out when Quidditch practice and chess games with Ron allowed, but after an initial burst of interest Ron decided it would be safer to leave the research to the girls. “I'll just distract you,” he claimed.

One evening late in November she was walking back to the common room with Hermione, their arms laden with as many books on great wizards of the age as they could carry when they heard an arrogant voice drawl, “Oi Evans, Granger where's your big-mouthed frog friend?”

The girls exchanged a glance as they turned slowly. “Malfoy,” Hermione smirked with mock politeness, “is there something we can help you with? Find you a hole to crawl into perhaps?”

Malfoy and his henchmen spread out in the corridor behind them and began walking towards them. “Look boys, the teachers' pets have got some library books; I suppose they need to do all the swotting they can seeing as how they're practically muggles.”

“Leave off Malfoy.” Alice felt her face warm as his arrogant gaze snapped to her, but she made herself glare back with all the defiance she could muster. He was just like the bullies in the Home and she wasn't going to let anyone else walk all over her again.

“So the mouse squeaks does it?” he grinned at her evilly, “why don't we see how loud.” Alice saw him reach for his wand and in an instant she dropped her books to snatch at her own so that the two faced each other, wands raised, across the corridor.

“Hey Evans, why didn't you invite us to the party?” Alice heard Hermione let out a sigh of relief as Fred and George walked around the corner, wands out, to stand behind the girls. “We'd have brought snacks.” One of the twins shot her a grin as Malfoy took a step back, uncertainty filling his pale, pointed face at the sudden change in odds.

“Why don't you be a good little firstie and scuttle off back where you came from?” the other twin added.

Giving them a look that promised retribution Malfoy and his friends quickly sloped off along the corridor. The twins watched them in silence until they were out of sight. “Little creep.” Alice thought this was George.

“Git,” his brother added eloquently bending down to help Alice pick up the books she had dropped.

“It's only Malfoy,” Hermione said, “he's all talk really.”

“Malfoy?” George queried, “Dad says his father's a piece of work too.”

“Anytime he needs sorting out again -”

“- just ask us.” Both twins grinned, and Alice could almost see the plots forming in their minds.

“Anyway we better be off.” For the first time Alice noted the knobbly sacks that each twin carried. “Places to go -”

“- people to prank.”

The twins waved back at them as they snuck off down the corridor looking every inch the embodiment of mayhem.

“I'm glad Harry wasn't here,” Hermione said as they walked back to Gryffindor Tower, “then there would have been a fight over what Malfoy said to us.”

Alice turned her head so Hermione couldn't see her smile. So only Harry would defend them would he? The thought of what Ron would have to say about that made her smile.

Malfoy continued trying to make their lives miserable in the run up to Christmas. When he discovered that they were all, apart from Hermione, staying at school for the holidays he revelled in his new ammunition. This resulted in Ron punching him at the end of Potions on the last day of classes before Christmas. Alice and Harry managed to pull him off the blonde before any serious damage was done but at that moment Snape had walked out of his dungeon and docked ten points from Gryffindor.

“So much for Christmas spirit,” Ron complained as they followed Hagrid to the Great Hall, “I shouldn't have lost any points, I was provoked!”

Hermione sniffed disapprovingly to show what she thought of this statement.

Two days later a fleet of horse-less carriages arrived at the gates to take everyone who was going home back to Hogsmeade to catch the train. Hugging her friends goodbye one last time and extracting the promise that they would all continue to look for any mention of Flamel in the library Hermione skipped off down the steps. As she watched her friend's retreating form Alice felt a little empty, it was the first time she had been at Hogwarts without Hermione and it would be strange. It was better than the alternative however, which would be returning to the orphanage for Christmas and at least she had Harry and Ron to keep her company. Harry never said much about his home but she got the impression that he didn't like his aunt and uncle very much. Ron on the other hand had complained loudly when he received a letter from his mother saying that they were going away for Christmas. Apparently Mrs Weasley's Christmas dinners were something of a legend.

She soon forgot about being lonely as she spent the rest of the afternoon playing exploding snap in the common room with Harry, Ron and the twins. At night though she found it returning as she faced the prospect of the whole dormitory to herself, not only had Hermione gone home, but Lavender, Parvati and Sally-Anne had gone as well. For the first time in a while she found herself dreaming of having a proper family, but the dream ended abruptly in a flash of green light and she bolted upright in bed to see that the sun was just beginning to creep through the curtains. Shaking off the disturbing end to her dream she got up and made her way down to the common room where she spent most of the day rereading Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century just in case she missed something the first time, and watching Ron beat Harry at wizards chess.

The next morning Alice woke early and pulled on her dressing gown before picking up the parcel at the bottom of the bed and running excitedly through to the boys' dormitory. The present she knew was from Hermione, she didn't mind that she had only gotten one, she was used to that, at least this year it probably wouldn't be socks or a vest from the women who ran the orphanage.

“Merry Christmas!” she crowed throwing open the curtains as the boys sat up rubbing bleary eyes.

“Merry Christmas,” Ron replied sleepily, unlike Harry who was suddenly alert.

“You too. Will you look at this? I've got some presents!” He began ripping the paper off the parcels faster than Alice would have thought possible. Turning to her own gift she carefully unwrapped the paper, trying not to rip it, to find a small charm bracelet and a note. Hanging from the chain was a tiny silver broomstick which looked very realistic despite its size. Smiling at her friend's choice of gift she turned to the note.

Dear Alice, (it said) I thought you might like this, I saw it in a wizarding catalogue shortly after our second, more successful, flying lesson and thought of you. I hope you do. You can choose your own charms for the rest of it. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and are keeping Harry and Ron out of trouble. From Hermione.

She quickly fastened the bracelet to her wrist and slipped the note into her pocket hoping that Hermione liked the copy of Olde and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charmes that she had slipped into her trunk.

Looking up she frowned when she saw the fifty pence that Harry had just unwrapped from his relatives. What sort of family gave their nephew something that disregarding? Ron on the other hand seemed fascinated by it. Harry's next gift was much more satisfactory in Alice's eyes. Ron's mother had sent him an emerald jumper and a tin of fudge.

“Here Alice, do you want a piece? It's quite good.” Harry offered her the tin.

“Thanks,” she sank her teeth into the buttery fudge as she watched both boys open their gifts from Hermione. Ron had a much larger pile of gifts than Harry and so he still had several more to open when Harry reached his last present. All three of them gasped as something fluid and silvery slithered from the wrapping to curl gently into a heap on the floor.

Gingerly Harry picked up the bundle and shook it out to reveal a cloak with barely visible antiquated designs stitched into it.

“If that's what I think it is,” Ron sounded awed and had completely forgotten about his sweets which showed the gravity of the occasion, “they're really rare, and really valuable.”

“What is it?” Harry asked swinging it around his shoulders.

“An Invisibility Cloak,” Alice breathed as she watched Harry's body disappear from view.

“Wow,” Harry's head dashed over to a mirror and suddenly vanished altogether as he pulled up the cloak. “Who do you think sent it?” asked his disembodied voice.

“Look,” Alice saw a note lying on the bed, she moved to pick it up as Ron slid off his bed, but Harry suddenly reappeared and beat her to it. He read it in silence for a moment a peculiar expression clouding the elation in his face.

“It doesn't say… but it was my Dad's.” He looked up at them in bewilderment. “My Dad's,” he repeated.

Alice smiled in understanding. “That's really great Harry; it gives you a connection to him almost.”

“Yeah…” He seemed to be having trouble absorbing the news and she could understand that, she would feel the same if she found something that belonged to her long dead parents.

They spent a good half hour admiring the cloak from every angle and then each trying it on several times before reluctantly tearing themselves away and going down to the Great Hall for a Christmas breakfast.

It was the best Christmas day that Alice had ever had, which wasn't difficult when you compared it to the rather feeble efforts the orphanage usually made. They spent the day having a snowball fight with the twins followed by the best lunch she had ever eaten and then retreating into the nearly deserted common room for an afternoon spent trying out the luminous balloons Harry got in a cracker and plotting ways to wind up Ron's brother Percy, who Alice discovered was just as pompous as he had seemed at the feast. The only thing that could have improved the day would have been if Hermione was there, but Alice didn't grudge her the time with her parents for a second, she knew how much she had missed them. By the time she collapsed into bed that night Alice was exhausted and quickly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Only to be woken abruptly, what felt like mere minutes later but was in actual fact the next morning, by the sound of a klaxon which seemed to be coming from behind the dormitory door. Groggily she made her way over to the door, opened it to see what all the commotion was about and was just about to step out when she realised that the stairs had vanished. In their place was a smooth stone slide which, like the child she still really was, she promptly slid down.

“What happened?” she asked skidding to a halt in the common room and noticing Harry and Ron getting to their feet looking rather stunned. At her question they both began tripping over each other to try and explain. The trouble was they were both explaining different things; Ron kept going on about how they had been trying to come and tell her something important whilst Harry seemed to be talking about his Invisibility Cloak and she couldn't seem to be able to connect the two.

“Boys, stop a second! Back up and start again from the beginning.” Which they duly did. She listened with mounting delight to Harry's tale of his midnight foray to find books on Flamel which led to his discovery of a mysterious mirror which showed him his family. At this point Ron butted in.

“We were coming to tell you about it, but we only got a few steps up when -” He made a smashing gesture with his hands to indicate they had fallen. “And then you came down. What happened to the stairs?”

Alice grinned, “Hermione's right, you two do really need to read Hogwarts: A History, if you had you'd know boys aren't allowed in the girls' dormitory, you triggered the security system.” She waited patiently until the boys' complaints about how unfair this was had dried up before saying, “so are you going back?”

Harry and Ron looked conspiratorially at each other before the three bent their heads together and began planning.

That night Alice met the boys in the common room before sneaking out through the portrait hole concealed by the cloak. Being invisible was a very odd experience considered Alice as they passed a ghost who didn't so much as blink in their direction. For one thing they didn't have a shadow and for another they had to bunch together and make sure they all walked at exactly the same speed under the cloak. As a result it was taking them much longer to find the mirror than it had taken Harry the night before.

“H-h-how much longer d-do you think this will take,” Ron's teeth were chattering with the cold. Her sympathy for his plight was slightly tempered by the fact that he had scoffed at her when she had suggested that he put on his dressing gown before they set out.

“I have no idea,” hissed Harry sounding frustrated. “I was running away from Filch and Snape at the time I didn't exactly get the opportunity to check a map.”

Alice elbowed Ron gently in the ribs as he grumbled under his breath about people who got too little sleep.

“Hang on.” Alice tensed at Harry's sudden whisper.

“What's wrong?” Had they been spotted? She cast around in the gloom for whatever had alerted him.

“My foot's showing; I need more cloak! Budge over Alice.”

Laughing softly in relief she complied, this was getting ridiculous, they would never find the mirror at this rate. They began creeping along the corridor again and rounded a corner only to narrowly avoid walking right into the brooding black figure stalking in the opposite direction.

She felt Harry's hand close vice-like around her arm and drag her backwards as Ron followed suit. Even with the cloak they still felt exposed and so wedged themselves tightly behind a tall stone gargoyle. Alice was just beginning to think that they might escape undetected when Ron sneezed quietly, too quietly for most normal people to hear but it was enough. She felt her heart sink as Snape whipped round, apparently he had the ears of a bat as well as the appearance; how many more points could Gryffindor afford to lose? What would they lose, another fifty points each?

“Who's there?” Snape was squinting in their direction now, looking more bat-like than ever. “I suggest you come out now.”

Unless…

“Don't move whatever happens,” she breathed in Harry's ear before carefully extricating herself from the cloak and stepping out into the corridor. She felt one of the boys try to grab her arm and stop her but she shook them off and walked into a patch of moonlight trying to get her trembling hands under control.

Snape stared at her for a long moment, a gamut of expressions crossing his usually immobile face. “Good evening Miss Evans,” he winced as he said her name. “Taking a little midnight stroll are we?”

“Something like that,” she whispered trying to meet his empty, black gaze. She prayed that Harry and Ron wouldn't do something stupid and would use the chance she had given them to try and get to the mirror.

“Well, perhaps we should extend this walk to Professor McGonagall's office,” he indicated for her to lead the way down the corridor. “Shall we?”

A/N: Olde and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charmes is a book mentioned in Goblet of Fire when Harry is preparing for the second task, I gave it to Hermione early.

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Alice concentrated hard on her slippered feet as she tried to stop herself from crying. It was odd, she hardly ever cried, she had learned not to in the orphanage, but ever since she had come to Hogwarts she was moving farther and farther away from the quiet, closed up person she had been. Looking at her slippers also meant that she didn't see the disappointment in McGonagall's face. She tried not to remember how when the Professor had first entered her office, after being summoned by Snape, she had merely stood there in silence in her tartan dressing gown and stared intently at Alice for several long excruciating seconds.

“Well, there's nothing more I can say,” her teacher's voice brought her back to the present, “go back to bed Miss Evans. Make sure you go straight there mind.”

As she turned to leave Alice heard the one thing she had been dreading ever since Snape had taken her to the Deputy Headmistress.

“I'm very disappointed in you.”

Stumbling from the room Alice ran back to Gryffindor as fast as she could. As she reached the last flight of stairs before the portrait of the Fat Lady she stopped to angrily wipe the tears from her face. She had known what the consequences would be when she had given herself up to protect the boys, so why was she so upset? It was stupid, bawling her eyes out over something she had knowingly gotten herself into. She took several deep breaths to calm herself down before continuing on to the common room.

“Alice! What happened? Are you okay?”

“What did Snape do?” Harry and Ron sprang up from where they had been sitting by the fire and rushed towards her anxiously.

“Are you alright?” Harry repeated, catching sight of her tearstained face in the light of the dying flames.

“Yeah,” she sniffed, “I'm fine. He just went and got McGonagall… forty points,” she answered the unspoken question on Ron's face.

“That's not so bad, it could have been worse.”

She sniffed and nodded glumly. “Anyway, so did you two find the mirror then?” The boys brightened considerably at this and began to tell her about their discovery.

“So, Ron didn't see his family in the mirror then?” Alice wasn't sure if this cheered her up or not. If Ron, who could see his family any old time, had managed to see them in the mirror she might have cried again.

“So if it doesn't show a person's family what does it show?” Her mind began ticking over the problem the mirror presented as her upset at losing forty house points and disappointing McGonagall abated slightly. “Perhaps… perhaps it shows us what we most want. Harry you want a family and Ron wants to succeed at Hogwarts, do you think that could be it?” she looked at them quizzically.

“Search me. You and Hermione are the brainy ones.”

“Are we going back tomorrow then?” Harry seemed eager.

“No.” For once Ron agreed with her. “I don't think it's a good idea, Snape will probably be hanging about again; I've already lost points and I don't think Gryffindor can really afford to lose any more do you?”

He didn't seem convinced. Alice watched him closely the next day sure that he would try to go back and see his parents. If she was honest she didn't really blame him; if she had a chance to see her family she would, but not if it meant running into Snape or Filch in the corridors again. She didn't think McGonagall would be as lenient a second time. It wasn't even certain that she would see her parents in the mirror, Ron hadn't, even if she took the risk to go back with Harry it might all be for nothing.

“I think he went back last night.” It was three days after Christmas and Alice and Ron were waiting in the Great Hall for Harry to come down to breakfast. “When I woke up in the middle of the night he wasn't in his bed.”

“Maybe he just went down to the common room?”

“No I went down and checked, it was empty. He came back about an hour later with the oddest look on his face though. D'you reckon we should ask him about it?”

Alice shook her head as Harry approached the table. If he wanted to talk to them he would, until then it might be better to give him some space, after all it must be upsetting seeing your murdered parents again after all this time.

None of them mentioned the mysterious mirror again for the rest of the holidays, concentrating instead on finding information on Nicolas Flamel as they had promised Hermione they would before she left. Or at least Alice did, Ron and Harry seemed more interested in playing wizard chess and Harry's grow-your-own-warts kit, much to her disgust. At New Year the twins kept all the remaining Gryffindors well entertained with a set of dragon fireworks they had gotten from Zonko's on their last trip to Hogsmeade and Alice managed to tear herself away from her research long enough to join in with the party.

Just when Alice was getting used to having so much space in Gryffindor Tower the Hogwarts Express returned the day before term started; bringing with it an irate Hermione storming through the portrait hole.

“What did you do now?!” She seemed to tower over Ron and Harry who shrank back into the sofa slightly as if to escape her fury.

“What are you on about?” Alice found it amusing that Ron even managed to sound guilty saying that.

“Don't pretend you don't know. I've seen the house points and Gryffindor have a lot less than they did before Christmas. If the twins had done something stupid we'd have no points left at all and since you're practically the only ones who were here for Christmas then that means you must have done something. So come on what was it?” She tapped her foot impatiently as the boys continued to stare at her looking slightly dazed.

“Actually Hermione,” Alice's near whisper caused her fried to swivel round sharply, “it was me that lost all the points.”

“What?” Hermione looked nonplussed before her expression shifted to suspicion. “You didn't go near that dog again? Please tell me you didn't Alice, I've told you it's dangerous.”

“It was our fault really Hermione,” Harry piped up helpfully. “She was getting us out of trouble.”

Hermione's gaze travelled slowly across all three, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Well come on then,” she eventually dropped into an armchair next to them, “what have I missed?”

Sure that she wasn't about to explode again, they began to eagerly fill her in on everything that had happened since she had left. She seemed about to say something when she heard that they had decided to go creeping round the castle under Harry's Christmas present, but when they reached the part about the mirror her jaw almost dropped. “Wow, I've read about things like that. I wish I had seen it.”

“Yeah, me too,” Alice added slyly, pleased to note the guilty looks on the boys faces as she did so.

“I still can't believe you let Alice take all the blame though!” Hermione was indignant on her friend's behalf.

“We tried to stop her -”

“We'd all have gotten caught if she hadn't -” The boys' protests ran into each other in their eagerness to be heard.

“Honestly Hermione it wasn't their fault, we were all to blame. Anyway Harry will just have to make sure that he wins the next Quidditch match to get points back.”

Hermione sniffed sceptically at her words and changed the subject.

Over the next month the four Gryffindors split their time between classes and trying to find Nicolas Flamel in their snatched breaks. Now that Hermione was back Harry and Ron were grumblingly forced to help constructively in the search.

“Why can't we just ask one of the teachers?” Ron complained one stormy Friday night as the three of them sat in the common room waiting for Harry's Quidditch practice to finish. Hermione and Ron were sitting at opposite ends of the sofa glaring balefully at each other over their library books, having fallen out earlier in the evening over something trivial. Alice meanwhile was curled cat-like on the floor next to the fire reading the huge old book Hermione had promised to loan her before Christmas.

“Because,” her friend snapped, “I'm assuming the teachers will know all about whatever the dog is guarding and if we suddenly start asking questions they're going to get suspicious. I do wish you would use your brain sometimes Ronald!” As she turned imperiously back to her reading she failed to see Ron stick his tongue out at her impishly.

They had just returned to their respective tasks and allowed a studious silence to fall when a distinctly disgruntled Harry, Fred and George came tramping into the common room covered from head to toe in mud.

“Did Wood make you practice with dung bombs today?” Ron asked innocently causing Alice's lips to twitch into a slight smile.

“Very funny Ronniekins.” Fred wiped a handful of mud onto Ron's cheek as he went to sit beside Alice on the floor. George followed him leaving Harry to flop down tiredly in the considerable space between Hermione and Ron.

“What's happened?” Hermione shut her book with a snap, “has Wood been harassing you about Quidditch or something?” She peered through the mud at Harry in concern.

“Nah it's nothing to do with Oliver, it's -” Harry broke off as Neville came toppling through the portrait hole with his legs bound together.

As everyone else in the common room laughed at him Alice got up and walked quickly over to him. “What happened?” she asked, promptly performing the counter curse.

“I met Malfoy outside the library,” he sniffed by way of explanation.

“Are you alright? You should go to McGonagall you know.” Even as she said it she knew he wouldn't.

“I don't want more trouble.”

“Alright. Do you want to come over and sit with us?”

“No thanks Alice, I might just go and write to Gran for a bit.” As he began to turn away Alice caught his arm.

“Neville, you know you have friends if you ever want to talk or anything don't you?”

Neville looked as if he might cry again, “yeah, thanks Alice.”

She looked after him worriedly as he disappeared up the stairs to the boys' dormitory, before turning back to her friends by the fire.

“Anyway,” Harry was saying, “Wood said Snape is going to referee the next Quidditch match.” He waited for the uproar this provoked to subside before continuing, “I have no idea why Madam Hooch can't do it like she usually does, but if he's the referee then we've no chance of winning. He'll be totally biased.”

“Of course you can win,” Hermione asserted, “but do you think you should play after… you know,” she raised her eyebrows cryptically so that Fred and George wouldn't know what she was talking about.

“Sounds like a mystery George,” Fred ran a hand through his hair spattering mud all over a chapter on alchemy in Alice's open book.

“And we love mysteries, so come on midgets - give it up. What's the big secret?”

“Don't you two have friends to go and annoy or something?” Ron complained.

“But annoying you is so much more fun, besides,” Fred reached his arm round Alice's shoulders and ruffled her hair, “Evans is our friend aren't you.”

“I won't be for much longer if you don't cut that out,” she elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“Ouch! My heart has been wounded” He swooned theatrically then ruined the effect by grinning wickedly. “Come on George, lets see if Lee will let us hide his tarantula under Ronniekins bed.”

Ron paled as his brothers wandered off to the other side of the common room. “You don't think they would?” he asked Harry in concern as Alice began trying to repair the mud damaged book.

The others began discussing the implications of Snape's sudden interest in Quidditch as she carefully wiped the mud from the thick parchment pages. She had nearly finished when she recognised the name she was scraping mud from.

“I've found him!” The excited shout burst out of her before she remembered to keep her voice down, causing Parvati, Lavender and Sally-Anne who were sitting at a nearby table to look over at her disapprovingly. “I've found him,” she repeated more quietly.

“Who? Nicolas Flamel?” It was Harry's turn to sound excited.

“Yes, here look. There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr Nicolas Flamel,” she quoted pushing the book towards them so they could read it themselves. Looking up in delight at her discovery she saw her excitement echoed in Hermione's face. (“I knew I had read his name somewhere before!”) Ron and Harry on the other hand were completely clueless.

“The Philosopher's what?” Ron asked as she impatiently indicated that he should read the appropriate paragraph.

After several seconds of silence Harry glanced at them, “do you think this is what Fluffy is guarding, the Philosopher's Stone?”

“It must be, and Snape must be trying to steal it!” Hermione looked appalled.

“Who wouldn't want to?” Ron asked. “I mean, as much gold as you could ever want and eternal life, I'm surprised thieves aren't queuing up at the gates.”

“No wonder we couldn't find him in any modern history books, I mean he's hardly recent is he?”

“So what are we going to do about Snape then? Do you think we should tell someone?”

“No,” the other three looked at Alice in surprise.

“Why ever not?” Hermione was startled.

“Well… I mean we don't exactly have any proof that he's up to anything do we?”

“Erm, hang on a minute,” Ron began counting points off on his fingers, “he was hanging around in the corridors at Halloween, he got bitten -”

“We don't know he got bitten,” she argued.

“He got bitten,” Ron repeated forcefully, “then he tried to kill Harry at the last Quidditch match, and now he wants to try again at the next one.”

“Which all adds up to nothing really when you think about it. There could be a hundred explanations for all that. And we don't know he's trying to kill Harry this time.”

“Whose side are you on?” Hermione demanded.

“Harry's of course. I'm just saying that we shouldn't jump to conclusions about things; if we want to go to a teacher we need solid proof or they won't believe us.” Her friends seemed to accept this response although Hermione and Ron remained rather frosty towards her for the rest of the evening, apparently the merest possibility of disloyalty towards Harry, however unintentional, would not be tolerated.

By the next morning however, all seemed to be forgiven and whilst Harry was busy practicing Quidditch in the run up to the match his friends were studiously swotting up on several simple hexes and curses they could use on Snape if the worst came to the worst.

As they shuffled into the stands on a rare day of sunshine late in February Alice clutched her wand anxiously to her side, much to the confusion of poor Neville who couldn't understand why they all looked so worried.

A sudden commotion in the opposite stand caused Alice to look over wondering what was wrong. She could have almost cheered when she saw Dumbledore appearing into the crowd. Hermione who had noticed the same thing clutched her arm excitedly.

“Snape wouldn't dare do anything with Dumbledore here,” she hissed quietly. “Everything's bound to be all right now.”

“Anyone want to bet how long Potter can stay on his broom this time?” a familiar sneering voice asked from behind them as the teams marched onto the pitch.

They all turned to find Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle smirking threateningly in the row behind them. His malevolent smile widened as he caught sight of Alice glaring at him, “sorry Evans I forgot you and Weasley don't have any money to bet.”

“Shove off Malfoy!” Ron deliberately turned his back on the Slytherins, but this only seemed to goad Malfoy on more.

“Look at Granger, she's so in love with Potter she can't take her eyes off him.” It was true Hermione seemed glued to the game, her grip on Alice's arm tightened painfully whenever something happened.

“Shut up Malfoy,” Ron threw the remark over his shoulder.

Alice glanced back in time to see a look of frustration cross his face as his efforts to upset them seemed to fail. Inspiration was swift however.

“You know,” he declared loudly as Fred Weasley spectacularly deflected a bludger aimed at Harry, “I think they put people they feel sorry for in Gryffindor. There's Potter who's got no parents, the Weasley's have no money, Evans has no money and no parents, and then there's you Longbottom. You've got no brains.”

“Take that back Malfoy,” Neville, who had been standing unobtrusively up till now, ruined his response by stammering nervously as he said it. Alice laid a comforting hand on his arm ready to defend her friend, but before she could Draco spoke again.

“Why don't you make me Longbottom?” As he turned to laugh with his hulking cronies he staggered back in surprise as Neville landed a punch on his jaw. It wasn't that he had hit him that hard, it was just the unexpectedness of the action that took him by surprise.

“You'll be for it you little -” he snarled viciously. But at that moment Ron seemed to decide that he had had enough of Malfoy's posturing and before Alice quite knew what was happening all five boys were rolling around on the ground aiming wild punches at each other.

“What's wrong with Harry?” Hermione's shriek brought her attention sharply back to the game. Scanning the air above the pitch she quickly located the scarlet figure plummeting towards the ground that was causing her friend so much concern. However Alice's keen eyes registered what Hermione's hadn't, this was no fatal fall, Harry was diving as fast as he could towards the tiny Snitch hovering several feet above the grass.

“Come on Harry,” she whispered under her breath, willing him on with every fibre of her being as he streaked past a bewildered Snape in mid air. Then abruptly, just as it seemed he was about to crash into the pitch, Harry pulled out of his dive the struggling Snitch clasped tightly in his hand. Amongst the deafening onslaught of cheering from the Gryffindors in the stand, Alice was hugged by an exuberant Hermione chanting he did it, he did it. Managing to extricate herself from her bushy haired friend's vice-like grip Alice turned back to the brawl still taking place on the floor of the stand. Slipping her wand from her pocket she aimed it under one of the seats. “Petrificus Totalus.” She felt a mild satisfaction as her spell took effect on a certain blonde haired menace, before quickly dispatching his friends who were in the process of giving Ron a black eye.

“Thanks Alice,” Neville panted clambering to his feet as he wiped a trickle of blood from his chin.

“What on earth have you been doing?!” Hermione only just registered the boys' injuries and the prone forms of the three Slytherins lying on the ground. “Never mind I don't want to know, come on.”

Pushing their way through the swarming crowds on the pitch the four of them made their way towards the distant figure of Harry borne aloft on the shoulders of Fred and George Weasley.

“Harry!” Ron shouted when they couldn't get any closer, “Harry over here mate.”

Harry twisted round as far as his precarious perch would allow and his emerald eyes scanned the students until he located his friends, at which point he waved excitedly at them but made a face to indicate that he couldn't escape at present.

“Hey come on, we're having a party back in the common room,” Parvati Patil descended on them and linked her arm through Alice's, “what happened to you two? Never mind, are you coming Hermione?”

Hermione looked doubtfully back towards Harry, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth. “Well…”

“Come on Hermione,” Ron touched his blossoming black-eye gingerly, “Harry'll be along soon. You won't get a chance to talk to him in this madness.”

“All right then.”

The first years made their way back to Gryffindor Tower where an impromptu party seemed to be under way. Some fifth years had charmed streamers to hang from the roof flashing red and gold intermittently and someone had tuned the radio to some wizarding station that was playing a strange lilting music. Moments after they had arrived in the room the portrait hole opened again and several floating platters of food preceded the twins into the room.

“Stole them from the kitchens,” George responded in answer to Ron's question. They were both still dressed in their Quidditch robes and their appearance caused an outburst of cheering from the surrounding students.

“Where do you think Harry is?” Hermione asked as she and Alice followed Ron towards the food.

“Shersh me.” Alice grimaced as she was treated to a display of the contents of Ron's mouth.

“Ron did anyone ever tell you you're disgusting?” Hermione looked around the common room again. “I'm going to look for Harry,” she declared suddenly making her way towards across the room.

Ron looked across at Alice, “you going with her?”

“No, I think I'll stay here. They'll be back soon. Why?”

“No reason,” Ron shrugged, “you two just go everywhere together that's all.”

Alice shrugged but was spared from coming up with a witty retort by Fred and George grabbing them both and doing a small jig around the common room. Several minutes later Hermione and Harry burst into the room and pulled Alice and Ron into a corner babbling about Snape and Quirrell in the forest.

“The Stone will be gone by next Tuesday if Quirrell's all that stands between it and Snape.”

Harry looked at them all seriously. “Not if we have anything to do with it.”

“Maybe if we just let Professor Quirrell know we support him then he'll be able to stand up to Snape,” Hermione suggested.

Alice seriously doubted that would be enough.HerH

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Disclaimer: Do I really need to repeat it again? JKR's not mine… unfortunately.

They soon had more immediate concerns than Snape and the Stone as a few weeks after Ron's birthday the teachers, and Hermione, decided they should begin exam preparation. For Alice this was relatively easy as she had an excellent memory and had never needed to revise much, besides she spent most of her spare time reading anyway. For Ron and Harry however, revision seemed to be the cue for them to complain as loudly as possible for as long as possible on every topic from the unfairness of life to how it was impossible to look up the properties of Alihotsy if you didn't even know how to spell it. Coupled with all that, they discovered that Hagrid was illegally trying to breed a dragon in his gamekeeper's hut. Apparently the Universe felt they didn't have enough to deal with.

As they walked back across the grounds still reeling from this latest bombshell, Hermione abruptly broke the stunned silence that had fallen between them.

“I mean what is he thinking? A dragon in that little hut? Not only that, an illegal dragon? Can you imagine all the things that might go wrong? He could be killed; he might get caught!”

“Nice to see she's got her priorities straight,” Ron muttered.

“And what's he going to do with it when it needs to fly? Let it loose on a leash above his hut? I can't even begin to imagine what it would take to feed it, especially once it starts growing. Hagrid really hasn't thought this through at all.”

She continued in this vein for so long that the minute they got back to the common room both boys yawned exaggeratedly and excused themselves.

“We'll need an early night if we're studying all day tomorrow.” Ron practically ran up the stairs leaving Alice to Hermione's ranting.

A week later Alice was sitting in the library with Harry and Ron helping them decipher a particularly boring tome on the formation of the Committee on Experimental Charms when Hermione rushed into the library brandishing several sheets of multi-coloured parchment.

“I've finished them,” she sang cheerfully.

Ron gave her a disgruntled glare as he lifted his head from the table. “Finished what?” he asked suspiciously.

“Your study timetable,” with a proud flourish she placed it down in front of him, “look I've coded it so that you know exactly when you're meant to be doing which subject. I did one for you as well Alice, I know you probably don't need it, but I thought you can never be too prepared.”

“Thanks Hermione,” Alice smiled at her friend, it was the thought that counted after all.

“Hermione,” Ron complained, “you do realise these are only our first year exams. We don't sit our NEWTs for another six years.”

“And you do realise Ron that we need to pass these exams to come back next year?”

“Relax Hermione; they only kick you out if you're really terrible. So unless you swap papers with Neville - Ouch!” Ron suddenly clutched his leg in pain as Alice kicked him sharply under the table. “What was that for?”

Seeing that his friends were all about to start arguing Harry shut his book abruptly and sprang up from the table. “I might go and warm up a bit before Quidditch practice starts. I'll see you guys later.”

Once he had gone Alice considered starting a fight with Ron but she really wasn't in the mood. “Just… don't say such mean things about Neville all the time, he's not stupid.” Looking down at her copious History of Magic notes she realised that she didn't really feel like studying much either. Harry's mention of Quidditch had sent her brain outside on a meander round the grounds and pitch. “I want these back when you're done,” she pushed her notes towards Ron who groaned loudly as Hermione took over with a wave to her friend. Alice smiled gratefully and moved quickly towards the door, she and Hermione were so in tune that her friend knew exactly when to give her some space if she especially needed it. Now was one of those times; she'd had a headache building for the last two days partly as a result of spending every available minute of the day in the library studying and partly because she'd been up half the night wondering what they should do about the Stone.

She found her feet needed very little encouragement to take her outside and she was soon climbing the rickety wooden steps into the Quidditch Stadium. It was eerily quiet without the crush of students that usually filled it, the only sounds she could hear was the faint laughter of those who had chosen to `study' by the lake and if she listened very hard the rush of air as a certain star seeker performed aerial acrobatics fifty feet above her. As Alice watched he was joined by several other people who, judging by their hair, seemed to be the Weasley twins and their friend Lee Jordan.

As he ascended again after a spectacular dive, in which he narrowly avoided skewering himself on his broom he was leaning so far forwards, Harry flew towards her. “Do you want to join in?” he yelled as he approached, “I can go and get a broom for you if you want?”

Alice grinned at him in delight before casting a concerned look at the growing group of flyers. “Are you sure the others won't mind? I wouldn't want to get in the way.”

“Don't be daft, practice doesn't start properly for ages anyway. Besides Lee's not on the team either.” Within seconds it seemed he had fetched a broom for her and she was in the air luxuriating in the feel of the wind rushing through her hair. To get the feel of the broom she did some experimental corkscrews and a loop-the-loop for good measure before they reached the group who had now been joined by the three Gryffindor Chasers. Feeling slightly shy she let Harry introduce her to the older students that she didn't know but she felt comfortable enough around the twins to punch Fred hard on the arm when he tried to pull one of her plaits with a comment about midgets on brooms. It took only moments before it was decided that they would play a cut down version of Quidditch with only one Chaser on each team. With a mischievous grin George suggested she be the seeker for his team, while Lee became their Keeper and a tall second year called Katie was the single Chaser. Everyone seemed to think it was incredibly funny that she was pitched against Harry, but despite knowing that the odds weren't in her favour Alice resolved to do her best to beat him… even if it was only practice.

Thankfully Harry had managed to find her a fairly decent broom rather than one of the decrepit Shooting Stars that languished pitifully in the broomshed, the Comet 180 that she was riding, despite being over half a century old, was probably one of the most modern brooms Hogwarts owned. The difference between her broom and Harry's was stilled decidedly marked however as the two of them rose above the fledgling match. Whilst she ascended gracefully at a somewhat leisurely pace Harry zoomed past her circling the pitch long before she got into position, true she wasn't in any hurry yet, but she was still at a definite disadvantage never mind the fact that he was the youngest Seeker in a century.

The two first years began circling the stadium keeping one eye on the progress of the match whilst the other searched for any sign of the Snitch. Because there were less players the match seemed to develop much faster than usual, within ten minutes Alice's team were 50 points up and 10 points in the lead. Every so often Harry seemed to twitch in midair as he saw something down below that could be, but never was, the Snitch. Alice was only half paying attention as she watched the twins begin an odd game of what looked like tennis with their bats and a bludger which led to loud complaints from Angelina Johnston when Katie managed to score another goal for her team. As she berated Fred Alice spotted a flash of gold next to her head and in the same instant was aware that Harry had dived so she did the only thing she could, she flattened herself along her broom and sent it hurtling in his wake. Her eyes stung as the wind whipped into them and she screwed them up as tight as she could focusing all her being on the tiny speck below her. Whether the snitch became aware that two seekers were hurtling toward it or it simply chose that moment to flit on as it continually did Alice wasn't sure but suddenly it took off across the pitch dancing between the other players who rapidly scattered out of Harry and Alice's way. Her friend had a definite lead on her but Alice was slightly smaller than Harry and she managed to coax every ounce of speed out of her older broom so that she was flying parallel to Harry's ankles.

Suddenly the Snitch dropped again and both players reacted instantly ending up neck and neck in a vertical dive. Alice was unaware of anything else except the Snitch and how close to it she and Harry were. She was completely oblivious of the fact that every other player on the pitch had stopped to watch the first years, or the fact that the ground was rushing up alarmingly to meet them. With several feet to go she considered pulling up and fleetingly wondered if Harry would too, instead she acted against every instinct for self preservation she possessed and threw herself off her broom towards the Snitch. Landing hard on the ground she saw another hand grab the golden ball as her fingernails scraped the side and almost in the same instant Harry dropped heavily on top of her forcing her face into the grass.

The two lay there for several seconds recovering from the exhaustion of the match before Alice turned her head awkwardly to the side so she could speak, “Harry could you maybe get up? You're crushing my lungs.”

Her friend grinned crookedly at her and seemed to consider ignoring her request for several seconds before she scowled at him.

“Hey Harry,” a voice from above them called as he helped her to her feet, “if her broom was better she'd have beaten you there. You better watch out.” George Weasley landed next to them followed by his grinning twin.

“Yeah but we still won.”

“Nah Harry's a better flyer than me,” Alice conceded as she spat out a mouthful of earth, “congratulations on your victory O-great-one.” She bowed low in a mock salute as the rest of the team landed.

“What's your name? Evans?” Alice turned to see who had spoken and found herself facing a burly fourth year who she was fairly sure was Oliver Wood the Gryffindor Captain.

“Yes,” Alice felt her old shyness creeping back when confronted with a much older pupil who was addressing her directly, “Alice.”

“That was some good flying Alice, nearly as good as our Harry here.” He clapped his bespectacled Seeker on the shoulder. “You should think about trying out for the team next year. We could do with some reserves.”

“I - I never really thought about it.” It was true, it hadn't even occurred to her. She had never been into sport much at primary school, although she had always done fairly well in the races on Sports Day. However she'd never been on a team for anything in her life, preferring to spend her time in the library instead. Oliver had given her something to think about.

“Right you two,” Wood was addressing Lee Jordan now as well, “I'm going to have to ask you to leave, we need to start practice.”

“Sure,” she collected the Comet 180 that was floating diligently several feet off the ground after she had jumped from it, “see you later Harry.”

As they were stowing the brooms in the shed Lee Jordan said, “you know you and Harry fly in exactly the same way. You're both completely nuts on a broom. The way you both jumped off at the end there…” He shook his head in disbelieving respect as he walked back towards the castle.

Alice allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction before setting off in the direction of the castle, initially she intended to go straight back to the library to find Hermione and Ron but one look down at her mud spattered robes and she redirected her steps to the dormitory. As she walked through the portrait hole she very nearly collided with Parvati and Lavender walking in the opposite direction.

“Oh, hi Alice…” Parvati's smile froze as she took in the state of Alice's appearance.

“Quidditch,” she offered by way of explanation, feeling the familiar flush building in her cheeks.

“I didn't realise you played…” her expression made it clear what she thought of the sport, especially if the result was mud on your robes.

“Well I suppose we'll see you later.” The girls walked round her making it painfully obvious they were trying to keep their robes clean. They didn't even wait till the portrait hole had shut before erupting into giggles which made Alice's usually pale cheeks burn even brighter. The other female Gryffindor first years were all right really, they just had very different outlooks from Alice and Hermione, although they were usually quite friendly to Alice at least. It was just that sometimes they could be a bit insensitive. Not that she was bothered she had other friends, speaking of which… Alice walked over to where Neville was sitting on his own next to the empty fireplace obviously struggling with his notes.

“Are you alright Neville?”

His head snapped up as though he was startled anyone had spoken to him. “What? Oh Alice it's you. Yeah I'm fine I just… No, I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?” Alice looked sceptically at the scribbled notes and crumpled parchment lying, half concealed under his copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration.

“I'm just trying to understand what Professor McGonagall was talking about the other day, for the essay she set us. I just…” He tailed off looking down at his notes so forlornly that Alice felt a surge of pity for her friend.

“Do you want a hand? I don't mind,” she added when he seemed about to protest. “I'll be back in a second I just need to change,” and without giving him a chance to argue with her, not that Neville ever would, she dashed up the stairs to the girls' dormitory.

After that day Neville began spending more time with Alice and her friends in the library with Hermione and Alice patiently explaining to him the theory behind certain spells, and Ron not so patiently grumbling at them all to be quiet. Alice found that teaching someone else was actually a rather good revision technique as it seemed to enhance her brain's organisation. However, much as she was fond of Neville, his presence meant that they couldn't discuss the Stone or Hagrid's dragon egg around him. It was about two weeks before they managed to give him the slip when he stayed behind after Herbology to talk to Professor Sprout. Feeling slightly guilty they made their way quickly across the grounds and down to Hagrid's hut to see how things were progressing. As it turned out their trip was well timed as Hagrid gleefully informed them that the egg had begun to hatch.

“I was going ter tell you but I didn't want to drag you out o' class.”

“That's alright Hagrid.” Harry like all of his friends was staring with rapt attention at the huge black egg wobbling precariously on Hagrid's kitchen table.

“What are you going to do once it hatches Hagrid?” Hermione hissed, “it could burn your house down.”

Hagrid didn't seem to hear her however as at that exact moment a long crack appeared around the middle of the egg with a noise similar to a gunshot masking her question.

“Any minute now…”

Suddenly with a final effortful twitch the egg split in half and a tiny black dragon's head forced itself into the open.

“Wow,” Ron sounded impressed, “it's not everyday you see a dragon hatch.”

The tiny dragon hiccupped gently as it peered hazily at its surroundings and shuffled in the direction of Hagrid who, close to tears, was cooing gently and reaching out to it.

“What are you going to call it?” Alice tried hard not to roll her eyes at Hermione's question, it seemed even her no-nonsense friend was being swept up in the wonder of the moment.

“Well I was thinkin' -”

“OUCH!” At the sudden noise from outside all five of them were instantly on their feet and peering towards one of the tiny windows in Hagrid's cabin.

“Who's there?”

Beyond the marked and smudged panes of glass Alice could just make out that some sort of tussle was occurring outside. Suddenly Harry moved past her, wrenched open the door - which was no mean feat for a tiny first year considering the size of it - and stopped dead in the doorway.

“Malfoy!” In the split second it took Alice to get to his side she heard someone mutter a curse and then feet pounding on the grass. As she peered around Harry she was briefly aware of a blonde figure sprinting across the grounds before none other than Neville appeared in the doorway clutching the side of his head.

“What happened? What are you doing here Neville?” They quickly pulled him inside and checked him for serious injury whilst bombarding him with questions.

“Hang on, just what do you think yer doing?!” Hagrid glowered at the interruption as he moved his not inconsiderable bulk around the table and easily hid the tiny dragon from view, although in Alice's opinion this was rather like bolting the stable door after the horse had bolted - assuming of course that Neville had seen anything.

“I… er… I um…” Her timid friend stuttered ineffectually under Hagrid's baleful stare.

“It's alright Hagrid,” Hermione reached up to lay a hand on his arm, “Neville's a friend. What happened Neville?”

“I - well I left the green… greenhouse, and saw you three coming over here so I ran after you… then I looked in - in the window.” Neville only just managed to stutter out, punctuating his sentence by throwing a terrified look at Hagrid every second word.

“And then?” Hermione seemed to be doing a wonderful impression of McGonagall all of a sudden.

“I couldn't see much… just you all round the table. Then Malfoy turned up, I tried to stop him - but he hit me and looked anyway. I'm sorry,” he finished miserably.

“Don't worry about it Neville,” Alice went over to give him a quick hug, “you were really brave trying to stand up to him.”

Neville blushed and looked slightly better. “Thanks Alice.”

“I s'pose it wouldn't hurt to take a look.” Hagrid seemed to relent and stepped to the side to reveal the dragon and Alice, Harry, Ron and Hermione all laughed at the look of astonished incredulity which covered Neville's face. “Neville, meet Norbert.”

Alice suppressed another giggle with difficulty. She had to concede that Norbert was much better than Fluffy by a long shot, but she still made a mental note never to let Hagrid name anything if she could help it.

A/N: Alihotsy is a plant mentioned in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I also borrowed one of my favourite lines from the film. The next chapter might be a bit longer in appearing because I've got a couple essays to write over the next few weeks. Hope everyone liked the chapter, as ever please R&R!

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Disclaimer: This woman called JKRowling wrote a brilliant set of books - you may have heard of them - and I liked the characters so much that I added some more and set them off on their own wee adventure.

“We're really sorry we didn't tell you Neville.” The five Gryffindors were huddled in a secluded corner of the common room later that evening.

“Yeah sorry mate, it's just that Hagrid said we couldn't tell anyone.”

“But that's still no excuse really,” Alice chipped in feeling terribly guilty. Neville however didn't seem to mind at all; on the contrary he was more stunned by the fact that there was a dragon on the grounds and he was suddenly the centre of attention.

“Honestly, it's all right. I understand why you wouldn't tell me.”

Hermione looked stricken at this, “No, no Neville. It wasn't like that at all! We just didn't think that -”

But Alice interrupted her. “Actually you could probably just stop there. The truth is we just didn't think at all.” She felt her cheeks colour as all four of her friends turned to stare at her. “Well it's true, we didn't and we should have. You're our friend and we left you out.”

There was an awkward pause as Neville considered this, then slowly the corner of his mouth quirked up in a shy smile. “Thanks guys… I still don't mind, but thanks. Can I maybe… actually it doesn't matter.”

“What?” asked Harry curiously, “you can ask us Neville.”

“Well, can I maybe go back with you, to see the… dragon?” Neville looked around surreptitiously as he whispered the word, “when you go to see it again?”

“The four friends looked at each other as identical grins spread across their faces. “Yeah I think we can do that.”

Over the next few days the five first years took it in turns to take a break from studying and go down to Hagrid's hut and help out with the dragon, though they always had to leave someone outside on guard under the invisibility cloak just in case Malfoy should turn up again. Neither party had mentioned the incident to the other, but the number of evil grins Malfoy had thrown in their direction over the past week had increased so markedly that they did not doubt that he had seen Norbert.

Surprisingly - once he got over his initial trepidation - Neville turned out to be quite good at caring for the dragon, but it was obvious to them all as Hermione doused the flaming curtains for the third time that week that Norbert could not stay. The trouble would be convincing Hagrid.

“No!”

“Hagrid he can't stay here forever, for one thing he's going to get far too big to keep in the cabin,” Hermione began counting her points off on her fingers, “and for another it's only a matter of time before your house gets burnt to a crisp - not to mention the fact that he's illegal and if anyone finds out you've been keeping him here you'll get into serious trouble.”

“No!”

“Look Hagrid,” Harry tried a different approach, “we all know how much you love him, but do you not think it would be better for Norbert if he had space to fly around and be free? It's not fair to him keeping him cooped up in here.”

“No, we can't jus' set him free, he's so little…” but his conviction seemed to be waning.

“We could make sure he goes somewhere safe, but he's a wild dragon Hagrid, he'll be alright.”

At that moment Alice had an epiphany. “Charlie!”

“What?”

“Ron your brother, you said he studied dragons in Romania. Couldn't he take Norbert, he'd at least know what to do with him, or know people who could take him.”

Harry seized on the idea, “Alice that's brilliant! What do you think Hagrid?”

“Well now… I don't know. What if he don't like it in Romania? Poor thing might get lonely without his Mummy.” He reached out a giant finger to tickle Norbert under the chin and nearly lost it for his pains.

Harry sighed, his frustration with the gamekeeper evident for just a moment. “Hagrid it's not safe keeping him here, and it's only a matter of time before Malfoy goes to Snape or Dumbledore and then Norbert will get sent away anyway. Is it not better that he goes somewhere that you've chosen for him?”

The thought that his revered headmaster might find out seemed to make Hagrid's resolve waver. “Yer brother will look after him won't he?” His doubtful question sent a wave of relief through Alice, in that instant she knew they had convinced him. Now it would just be a matter of contacting Charlie and hoping - she crossed her fingers - that he would agree to come and collect Norbert.

That evening Harry, Hermione, Alice and Neville had taken up their now customary places by the fire in the common room and were waiting for Ron to return from the Owlery after sending his missive to his brother.

“How long do you think it will take for Ron's brother to answer?” Neville looked up from the book he was struggling over, his brow still furrowed as he contemplated the problems presented by Transfiguration. No matter how many times Alice explained it to him it was still as unfathomable as ever.

“Dunno,” Harry had given up on his homework over an hour before and was now making towers from chocolate frog cards - much to Hermione's evident disgust as she kept glancing over at him and tutting loudly. “I suppose however long it takes for an owl to fly to Romania.” No one seemed to know how long this would be although Alice could tell from the expression on her friend's face that Hermione was making a mental note to look it up next time she was in the library. “Maybe he'll just come straight over when he gets the letter though. It wouldn't take him anytime at all if he used the Floo or apparated.”

“Oh honestly,” Hermione sounded truly exasperated, “when will you learn to read? You can't Floo in and out of the country because the Floo Network is internal and doesn't have outside links - unless of course they set up special ones,” she added as an after thought, “which they can do for foreign dignitaries and things.”

“And you can't apparate in and out of the country either; it's against the law because of an invasion attempt by Goran the Ungrateful from Sweden in 1376 when he tried to apparate hundreds of wizards into the centre of London. There's a whole sub-division in the Department of Magical Transportation who regulate the anti-apparition wards around the country. It's just like what's in place at Hogwarts but much bigger.”

Harry seemed momentarily stunned into silence - not for the first time - at the amount of relatively useless information that Alice and Hermione managed to retain. Neville on the other hand was merely curious. “What happened to them?”

“To who?” Ron had returned whilst they were talking.

“Did you send it?”

“Yeah, I had to borrow Percy's owl Hermes though - Errol would have snuffed it if he tried to fly that far - he'll kill me if he finds out, so Charlie better reply quickly. So who were you talking about?”

“The wizard army of Goran the Ungrateful.” She turned back to Neville as Ron visibly lost interest. “They missed the city by a few miles because it's difficult to aim over such huge distances. Half of them got splinched and the other half landed on top of each other so they were fairly easy to round up.”

“Or mop up,” Fred chimed in as he walked past with his brother. Alice rolled her eyes as he winked at her whilst proceeding to relate to a rather revolted looking Neville exactly what had befallen the splinched invaders.

It took Charlie only a few days to respond to Ron's enquiry, and they were all relieved to hear that some of his friends would be along to pick Norbert up at midnight the following Saturday, which gave them three days to work out how to get a dragon to the top of the Astronomy Tower.

“We could knock him out carry him up under the cloak during the day,” Harry postulated as they walked to their Transfiguration class the next morning.

“Do you know how to knock out a dragon?” Ron asked sceptically, his expression becoming smug as Harry's silence proved his point.

“What about transfiguring him into something no one would notice - a toad or something?”

“That might work - as long as no one gave it to Neville to look after.” Ron added this last as a quiet aside to Harry, but Alice who was walking on the other side of him heard and hit him rather forcefully with her copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration.

“No it wouldn't work,” Hermione spoke over his exclamation of pain, “just the same as trying to knock it out with magic wouldn't. Dragon's are highly magical creatures and it takes more experienced wizards than us to cast spells on them.”

“Well we have to think of something soon,” Harry intervened when it looked as though they might start arguing.

“Why don't we just put him in a cage and carry him up once everyone's gone to bed?” Neville supplied with quiet logic, momentarily rendering them all silent as he pointed out the obvious.

“It would need to be strong,” Hermione sounded doubtful.

“Not really, as long as it managed to hold him till we got up there I'm sure Charlie's friends could come up with something.” Alice considered for a moment. “And I'm sure I read somewhere that tomatoes act as a soporific on them.”

“A soapy-what?”

“Soporific, it means it makes them sleepy. The only problem is they don't like them very much.”

“Yeah Weasel-bee, don't you know anything?” All five Gryffindors froze as Malfoy shoved past them with his two goons trailing predictably behind him. “See you later.” He smirked over his shoulder.

As they watched him walk away Hermione seemed about to faint, she swayed precariously for a moment with one hand clapped firmly over her mouth as though she were trying not to be sick. “Oh no - Ron!” she clutched at his arm, “can you write to Charlie to change when they arrive?”

“Dunno, it'll be too late won't it? How much do you think he heard?” He directed his second question to Alice and Harry who were conducting a similar muted conversation in the middle of the corridor.

“I'm not sure; I didn't even know he was behind us. But it means we're going to have to be even more careful now.”

Any further conversation on the subject was prevented by the appearance of Professor McGonagall who ushered them into the nearby classroom and immediately began expounding on the principles behind turning a coin into a ring - why you would ever do this was a concept Ron just couldn't grasp. They had to limit their planning to snatched conversations between classes and even when they retired to the common room at night they were denied the opportunity to discuss their schemes due to the fact that Fred, George and Lee Jordan insisted on playing Exploding Snap with them all evening and were not in the slightest bit dissuaded by the fact that Ron kept telling his brothers to get lost every twenty minutes - although Alice had to admit she was enjoying herself.

By the time Saturday came around however they had managed to work out a plan of sorts. Two of them would go down to Hagrid's once it was dark and carry Norbert up to the tower underneath the Invisibility Cloak, the other three would wait in the Common Room and keep a lookout from the window to see if Malfoy followed them across the grounds and be prepared to act if the situation required it. This plan was complicated very slightly by the fact that Norbert took a fancy to the taste of Ron's hand whilst the boys were helping Hagrid rig up a cage to put the dragon in for the journey on Saturday morning.

“I'll never be able to use my hand again,” he whimpered as they sat in the Hospital Wing - which after much badgering from Hermione and Alice he had reluctantly agreed to go to - watching Madam Pomfrey bustle about with bandages and potions clicking her tongue in exasperation every so often. “Look at it,” he nodded towards the swollen, fleshy mess that had previously been a hand and was now covered in several sets of puncture wounds and turning a violent shade of green before their eyes.

“It's definitely the most vicious dog bite I've ever seen.” The sceptical way she said it left them in no doubt as to whether or not she had believed Ron's makeshift story. Hermione looked as if she might be sick again. Her wide eyes and strained expression, coupled with the guilty way she kept looking at Madam Pomfrey practically screamed We're Up to Something; she might as well have worn a sign.

“We should probably leave you to rest,” Alice gently nudged Hermione's foot and indicated that they should think about leaving; “we'll come and see you later.” The four of them murmured goodbyes as they trooped towards the door and Ron stared mournfully at his mutilated hand. “Oh Ron,” she turned back as though it was an afterthought, “we'll let you know how we get on with that homework tonight - so you don't fall behind.” She hoped he would be switched on enough that he understood what she was talking about.

“Um… yeah sure - ouch, be careful - yeah you guys go ahead.”

When they got back to the common room they decided that Alice would take Ron's place and go with Harry to get the dragon as neither Hermione nor Neville particularly wanted to volunteer, Neville because the whole idea terrified him and Hermione because despite the fact that she was more relaxed about rule breaking now she still wasn't completely reconciled to the idea; especially if it might mean getting caught.

“This is insane,” Alice hissed at Harry as the two of them struggled back from Hagrid's hut, moving painfully slowly under the weight of a dragon that was almost as long as they were - a feat rendered slightly less impressive by the fact that neither of them were particularly tall. “Of all the mental things we've done this year this is definitely the most ridiculous, we should be committed. Why do all the bizarre things always happen to us?”

“Maybe we're jinxed - here help me get it up these steps - it can't just be us stuff happens to though, it must be other people too.”

“What, you think the castle's just full of kids smuggling illegal magical creatures out of the country - Ow! Watch my knees - and discovering enchanted mirrors and stupidly named dogs down corridors they're not supposed to be in? I know this place is weird but it's not that weird.”

“Alright maybe we are -” The two of them paused as Nearly Headless Nick glided through the wall to their left and disappeared out of sight back down the way they had come. “- maybe we are a bit unusual, but this definitely beats spending an evening looking up some rubbish for Binns' four foot essay for next week.”

“Four and a half,” Alice corrected absently as the reached the top of the stairs and pushed open the door to the top of the tower allowing the moonlight to spill through. Moving carefully across the roof Harry and Alice manoeuvred the cage into the centre and with great care so as not to disturb Norbert - who seemed to have fallen asleep somewhere along the fourth floor - they laid it down.

“What's the time?” Harry stared up at the velvety black sky, which although speckled with a dusting of stars was showing a distinct lack of any broom activity.

“It's five minutes to twelve, they should be here anytime - providing they haven't been held up of course.”

“Are you always this optimistic?” Harry grinned at her as the two of them sat down to wait.

“Do you think school will always be like this, or do you think we've just had a really crazy year?”

“Maybe - why aren't you enjoying yourself?”

“Yes!” Alice's response was emphatic, “Of course I wouldn't change it for anything, that's why I was asking. It's miles better than…” she tailed off, not wanting to complain about her home life when she suspected his was much worse.

“Yeah I know what you mean. I -” He seemed uncertain. “I used to dream about escaping somewhere; that I was flying through the air to somewhere safe. That sounds really stupid doesn't it.”

“No, so do I sometimes. Dreams about flying are quite common I think. Especially if you feel trapped; I used to dream I was flying after days when the other kids in the Home had been picking on me.”

Harry seemed to be staring resolutely at the slabs now, “I hated it at home, my family hate me, but it always felt good when I was flying. Like I was free, that I wasn't in the cupboard anymore.” Eventually he looked up at her, “Don't mention it to the others would you? It sounds daft.”

“Of course not.” She could see it in his eyes that he believed her and also confusion about his unprecedented lack of restraint in front of her. “Maybe you're a seer, maybe you were seeing yourself riding a broomstick.” She attempted to lighten the suddenly sombre mood.

“Nah I think I was on a flying motorbike.”

“Well then, now I know you're mental.” Their laughter was suddenly interrupted by an exclamation of greeting as Charlie's friends swooped into view carrying some sort of harness between them.

The handover of Norbert was cordial but swift. Alice wondered if they knew exactly why two eleven year olds were disposing of a dragon at the top of the astronomy tower in the middle of the night, but they never indicated either way and neither she nor Harry ventured the information.

“Well that's that then,” Harry sighed with relief as the figures on broomsticks dwindled into the distance. “Come on,” he took her hand and pulled her back towards the door. They had barely gone down three steps when realisation suddenly hit her.

“Harry, we forgot the Cloak!” Scrambling back across the top of the tower they threw the silvery material around their shoulders.

“Lucky you remembered about that, could you imagine what would have happened if you'd forgotten?”

A/N: It just occurred to me how odd it is that right from first year Harry and his friends always sat by the fire, surely this would be the best spot in the room - especially in the winter in a draughty castle - and so would be used by older students? Maybe they're just all very respectful of The Boy-Who-Lived. Just an observation I thought I'd share. Also Ron's hand swells up much faster than in the book because Norbert bit him several times rather than just once.

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Disclaimer: See all previous chapters for notes on the copyright… I can't be bothered writing it again.

If they had thought their excitement over the previous night's success could not have been more complete they were proved wrong the following day when they overheard Pansy Parkinson complain to one of the other Slytherin girls, whom Alice was fairly sure was named Regan Runcorn, that Malfoy had been caught wandering around the corridors by the Astronomy Tower in the middle of the night.

“Malfoy's got detention and he's lost 30 house points!” Harry crowed with delight as they walked back from lunch. “Could this day get any better?”

“Well you could conjure up some house points for us if you really felt like it.” Ron indicated the giant hourglasses as they passed. The rubies glinting dully at the bottom of Gryffindor's glass were sadly lacking in comparison to everyone else's.

“You could always let Ravenclaw win the next Quidditch match Harry,” Hermione observed, “at least then they would probably win the House Cup instead of Slytherin.” She turned back to see her friends staring at her as though she had just recommended they cut off one of their hands.

“You're kidding right?” Ron looked stricken. “Hermione, it's Quidditch. You can't go around letting other people win just because you're playing tactically. It's just not right.”

Hermione seemed bemused. “All right, forget I said anything.”

Alice smiled, she loved Hermione to bits but she just never would get why the rest of them all loved Quidditch so much. She had tried to explain the game to her once so that she could get more involved in some of the lengthy conversations she occasionally got into with the boys on the subject. It was probably the first time she had ever seen Hermione get bored by new information.

With their exams rapidly approaching the four of them spent most of their time in the library studying - or in Ron's case trying to not get caught eating Pumpkin Pasties by Madam Pince - and trying to spot any odd behaviour on the part of Professors Quirrell or Snape.

“I thought he looked a bit ill today in class,” Harry pointed out two weeks later.

Ron snorted, “so would you if you had to stay in that room all the time; it stinks, goodness knows what he has in there.”

“Honestly Ron, the man's trying to save the wizarding world. You might be a bit more supportive.”

Alice drew her gaze away from the window where she had been staring out at the blinding sunshine which was so distracting when you were trying to concentrate on work. “When do you think Snape will try to get the Stone? Do you think he would wait till terms done when there are no students going about?”

Her friends pondered this, “I'm not sure, do the teachers stay at school in the holidays?” Apparently no one had an answer to this.

“If I was Snape I'd want to do it sooner rather than later, that way there's less chance someone would find out what I was up to. Besides we can only hope if he does try to steal it then he does it during term because if he waits till the holidays then we've no chance of stopping him.”

“I -” Hermione stopped mid sentence suddenly on the alert. “What's going on over there?”

The rest of them turned to see a group of fifth years at the other side of the library get to their feet and start pushing towards the door with their sleeves covering their faces. Gradually those at the tables around them began to move as well some pausing to collect their books others simply abandoning them on the tables. Within minutes the doorway was filled with a surging black mass of students trying to get out of the library for no reason that Alice could fathom, until -

“Ugh! What is that smell?” She tried not to gag as the rancid odour hit her.

“Smells like dungbombs.” Ron's voice was muffled as he clamped a hand over his nose and mouth. “C'mon, we better move.”

Standing out in the corridor with all the other students she coughed several times to try and clear the sour taste the smell had left in her throat and wished that she had some water, or at least knew the spell to conjure some. The buzz of noise around her dimmed slightly as Madam Pince swept out of her beloved library - it was probably the first time Alice had seen her outside of it - and looking rather like an enraged turkey demanded silence.

“When I find out,” she was practically spitting, “who committed this… this sacrilege there - will - be - consequences.” And with that she swept imperiously through the assembled group.

No sooner had she vanished than Fred and George turned up sporting identical wicked grins. “What's going on here then?”

“Are you having another party Evans?”

“And you didn't invite us - again?”

“I think she's trying to tell us something George.”

Alice raised an eyebrow at their idiotic behaviour. “You two didn't happen to have anything to do with this did you?”

“With what?” It was still rather disturbing the way they managed to speak in perfect unison like that.

“Of course they did - the dungbombs in the library,” Ron scowled at them, “no one else would be as daft. You always do love showing off.”

“Someone let off dungbombs? Shame we missed that.” The twins adopted innocent expressions with practiced ease. “Why didn't we think of that Fred?”

“Although… now you mention it we did leave a bag lying around somewhere where anyone might have stolen it and used it for their own nefarious ends.”

“But not you of course.” Hermione looked exasperated and her voice was getting shriller with every word. “How can you be so irresponsible, people are trying to study. Exams are important!” Clearly the stress was affecting her.

“You could at least have waited till exams were over till you did it.” Harry it seemed felt duty bound to stick up for Hermione's point of view although Alice was sure she could see the corner of his mouth twitching, and Ron certainly wasn't doing anything to conceal his grin.

“But then there wouldn't have been anyone inside.”

“Well you should have done it at dinner then.” Fred looked down at Alice in approval at this idea and she noticed vaguely that for the first time she didn't blush at venturing an idea unprompted.

“That's brilliant Evans - but maybe we should leave it till exams are over,” he added catching sight of the severe look on Hermione's face.

“We best be off then, but Evans -”

“Anytime you want to join in on a prank -”

“Let us know.”

“Idiots.” Hermione sounded almost as livid as Madam Pince a few moments earlier.

“Come one, let's go back to the common room; the atmosphere in there is going to be lethal for hours. We might as well get some work done.”

They all agreed - even Ron - but no sooner had they started along the corridor than Harry stopped again. “Do you mind if I catch up with you? There's something I want to check.”

“What is it? Really Harry we need to study, these exams are important.” Hermione was evidently going to be irritable with everyone for the rest of the day.

“It won't take a minute.” Taking their silence for assent he grinned at them and set off in the opposite direction.

“Honestly, the way everyone's behaving today you'd think we just had a party to go to at the end of term, not exams!”

“Well we do, Fred and George said the end of term feast is fantastic. I can't wait.”

Alice rolled her eyes; trust Ron to think of his stomach.

Twenty minutes later Harry reappeared in the common room and looked around cautiously before coming over to speak to them. “Where's Neville got to?”

“He went to get his Herbology books, why what's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Harry slipped into one of the empty chairs at their table, “I just went past the forbidden corridor to check if I could still hear the dog. I can,” he answered Alice's question before she'd even opened her mouth.

“Why is everyone so obsessed with going to see that dog? It should be Snape we're worried about.”

Harry turned to Hermione and patiently explained his logic to her, “I thought that since we can't do anything about Snape at the moment, we could at least check to see he hasn't gotten past the dog whenever we're going in that direction - it's a start anyway.”

Hermione looked suspicious, “if that was all you were doing why did it take you so long?”

“That Arithmancy professor was talking to Professor Quirrell in the corridor; I had to wait till they were gone.”

“Oh, ok.”

Alice stifled a grin with difficulty, she was fairly sure her best friend would not have accepted such a simple explanation if Ron had been the one giving it.

For the next week anytime they were walking to and from classes or to the library the four of them made sure to make time to walk along the third floor corridor their ears straining for any hint of Fluffy, much to the consternation of poor Neville who was with them on several occasions when they did this and couldn't understand why they needed to go up a whole two floors to get to History of Magic when they had been on the right floor in the first place. Ron was going to try to convince him it was a short cut, but Alice felt that they were lying - it wasn't lying really, just omitting the truth - to their friend enough already and half told him, explaining that Harry wanted to check something which he accepted. If trying to monitor the dog showed them anything though it was how useless this was going to be as a tactic against Snape, they were rarely in the corridors especially as they spent all of their time revising the copious notes the had accumulated over the course of the year; or in Ron's case borrowing everyone else's.

Before they could come up with a better solution to the problem however their exams were upon them and Alice barely had time to eat or sleep let alone worry about the fact that one of their teachers was plotting to steal a priceless and highly magical object. Her nerves weren't helped by the fact that after they came out of each exam Hermione would recite exactly what she had written for each question. The problem was not so much that what Hermione had written was any different to what she had it was just that she simply couldn't remember, it was like someone had cast a memory charm on her the minute she put her quill down. The boys didn't seem too enthused by this habit of her friend's either, Neville would typically disappear to his dormitory whenever she started and Ron, when he wasn't outright telling her to be quiet which usually led to an argument, would sit and tut loudly whilst glaring at Hermione when he thought she wasn't looking. Even Harry, who seemed to understand as well as Alice that this was just Hermione's way of releasing stress after an exam, was getting tired of it by the end of the week; however he dealt with it slightly more tactfully than Ron.

Suddenly it seemed to be the end of the week and the five of them were making their way out into the beckoning sunshine, looking slightly dazed after their History of Magic exam.

“I thought that wasn't too bad, the question about -”

“Hermione shut up.”

“I was just - oh never mind, it's too nice a day to argue.”

“I am so glad that is over, I never want to have to read about Urg the Unclean ever again!”

Slowly they drifted across to the Lake allowing the warm June sunshine to soak into their bones and revelling in the fact that they could spend the next three weeks doing whatever they wanted - when they weren't in classes of course. For a while the five of them sat under one of the trees on the edge of the lake and Hermione began to show Neville how to make daisy chains whilst Harry and Ron made lists of all the things they were going to do with there free time.

“Ron do any of these things not involve food?” Alice queried cracking one eye open and looking up at him with a grin from where she lay stretched out on the grass. His only response was to throw a handful of grass in her face. As much as she loved sitting reading and learning Alice had to admit it was lovely just to be outside, relaxing and having fun with her friends at the end of term. She couldn't believe her first year at Hogwarts was nearly over although she deliberately tried not to contemplate how bored she would inevitably get in the summer - how could anyone go back to `normal' life after this?

As though to emphasise her point her musings were abruptly intruded upon by a huge splash from the lake and she quickly sat up to see what was going on. Alice grinned as she saw the twins and Lee Jordan standing several feet away from the edge dripping from head to foot as the deluge which had just engulfed them rushed back to the lake. Clearly the giant squid had gotten bored with being teased and decided to retaliate.

“Go ahead, laugh it up Ronniekins,” George shouted as the three walked over to the first years and then proceeded to ring his sodden robes out over his brother who abruptly stopped laughing and sat up trying to take a swipe at him.

“Well it serves you right,” Hermione sniffed - she still hadn't completely forgiven them for the incident in the library, “the poor squid isn't just there for your amusement you know.”

“Sure it is,” Fred hung his robes on a branch to dry and rolled up his sleeves, “it just hasn't been informed of the fact.”

“So are you ready for the last Quidditch match then Harry?” Lee asked stretching his legs out and leaning back on his elbows. “Am I going to have to prepare a long commentary or will you save me the work?”

The conversation turned to Quidditch and Hermione, looking slightly put out, turned back to her daisy chain. After a while Alice, feeling slightly sorry for her, joined her and the two of them managed to make themselves some quite successful necklaces. Eventually Harry glanced at his watch and announced that it was probably time to go in for dinner, something which no one argued with least of all Ron whose exhortations for them to hurry up on the way back to the castle were punctuated by loud grumbles from his stomach.

“I'll be along in a minute,” Hermione announced as they reached the entrance hall, “I just want to put these books back in my trunk.” Alice wasn't quite sure why she had insisted on taking her copy of A History of Magic to the exam since she had been made to leave it at the front of the room and had barely had time to read any of it whilst they were waiting outside beforehand.

The remaining Gryffindors went to sit down and Alice was just helping herself to a particularly large piece of shepherd's pie when Harry's exclamation nearly caused her to drop it.

“Where's Dumbledore,” he was staring up at the staff table looking stricken.

Ron, Alice and Fred all followed his gaze and sure enough the Headmaster's seat was vacant.

“Didn't you know?” George was saying, “he left this morning, we saw him leave. Probably going to the Ministry or something, Dad said Fudge is always sending him owls.”

Alice's eyes flicked along the rest of the table of their own volition to where, for the first time ever, she hoped Snape would be sitting. He wasn't.

“Oh no,” she breathed turning wide eyes to Harry and Ron.

“He can't -”

“Do you think - ?”

Hastily all three of them scrambled to their feet. “Neville tell Hermione we've gone to see Fluffy, she'll understand. And tell her Dumbledore's gone.” Without waiting for an answer all three dashed the length of the Great Hall leaving everyone behind them thoroughly bewildered.

“Where are you going?” one of the twins shouted at their rapidly retreating backs, but Alice didn't even look around to see which one, she was too busy trying to get up the stairs as fast as she could and praying that they wouldn't be too late to stop their potions master.

Minutes later they were on the third floor and Alice was staring at the door which concealed Fluffy. She couldn't hear him. “He must have gone through already.” She felt sick.

“Should we get a teacher?”

“There's no time,” Harry asserted, “besides they still probably wouldn't listen. Alice was right, who would believe a bunch of kids? Then we'll just have wasted even more time.”

“He must have thought he could steal it whilst no one was looking. Should we wait for Hermione?”

But there was no need for no sooner had Ron finished his sentence than the girl in question came careening along the corridor followed, rather distantly, by a very out of breath looking Neville.

“Neville told me what happened, has he gone through?”

Harry looked grave, “well we can't hear Fluffy anymore so I think so.”

“Who's Fluffy?” Neville's question was ignored as they cautiously began to move towards the door. “Where are you going?” He was sounding confused and panicked now. Alice on the other hand felt suddenly calm; now that they had decided to do something she just wanted to get on with it rather than worry about what lay ahead.

“Neville go back to the Hall and tell one of the teachers to come up here. Well -” she qualified as the others all looked at her, “it can't hurt to tell them where we are now can it?”

“I -”

“Shh!” Harry gestured for them all to be quiet as he pressed his ear to the door. “There's someone in there,” he hissed, “I can hear music.” Looking suddenly resolute he grasped the door handle and paused to look at them all. “Well here goes then,” and he flung open the door to reveal - nothing.

Alright Fluffy was there, all three giant heads drooped down onto its paws and snoring loudly, but other than that there was no one in evidence.

“Wow,” whispered Ron taking in the sight of the massive dog for the first time.

“We're too late,” Hermione groaned.

Neville whimpered softly next to Alice. “What is that thing?”

“It's a guard dog,” she turned to Hermione, “Snape must have only just gone down if he's still asleep, we can't be far behind.”

“I know we should -”

“Snape?” Neville sounded slightly less terrified now that it was obvious the dog wasn't going to do them any immediate damage.

“He's gone through the trapdoor, Harry we should -”

“Snape can't be down there.”

Harry, who had just taken a step into the room stopped and turned round. “What do you mean Neville? Why not?”

Neville blushed as they all stared at him. “Because we just passed him on our way here, going down to the Hall, there's no way he could have gotten up here again before us.”

For several long seconds there was utter silence in the corridor apart from the steady thrum of Fluffy's breathing. Alice could see her friends' expressions rapidly switching from confusion to fear and back again and she suspected hers was much the same. So -

“If Snape's not -”

“Then who - ?”

They all stared towards the open trapdoor in silence. “I'm going down,” Harry sounded determined.

“Neville go and get a teacher,” Alice repeated, she wasn't about to let Harry disappear off through that trapdoor by himself. She was vaguely aware of the sound of running feet behind her but was distracted by the fact that the dog seemed to be twitching.

“ - at its feet?” Hermione was whispering something to Ron.

“Looks like a harp. Alice!” Ron tried to grab her as she darted forwards and scooped it up just as Fluffy opened three of its eyes blearily. Scooping it up she plucked a string and immediately the dog's eyelids began to droop, which was just as well really because those fangs were perilously close.

“I don't suppose any of you have secret harp playing skills you're not sharing,” the joke in Ron's voice didn't quite reach his eyes.

The others shook their heads but Alice answered, “I played the Celtic harp once in music at school, I ended up picking the violin though - it's better than nothing. Hurry up I'll play something.”

As the others moved warily to investigate the trapdoor she began playing the first thing that came into her head which turned out to be a rather distorted version of Mary had a little lamb; luckily Fluffy was not a musical connoisseur and remained asleep. Suddenly Alice felt herself trying to repress the urge to burst into hysterical giggles, they were trying to follow some now unknown person through a hole in the floor that led to goodness knows where to stop them from stealing a precious stone that would let him/her/it live forever - and they weren't even supposed to know about it in the first place, and now she was playing nursery rhymes to a giant three headed dog - badly. With an effort she controlled herself and one by one her friends dropped out of sight through the gap in the floor. Just as she was readying herself to follow them she heard Hermione's shriek followed by more shouts from below.

“Alice stay there,” Harry's voice sounded panicked.

Straining to work out what was going on she realised too late that she had stopped playing and the commotion from below had awoken the dog. For a moment time stood still as six yellow eyes glared at her with growing malevolence, then everything seemed to happen at once. The dog lashed out snarling with fury at being disturbed and she felt her sleeve rip as she threw away the harp and jumped with a scream. For several seconds she felt cold air rushing past her a she dropped into darkness and just as she thought she might never stop she landed painfully on -

“Alice move!”

Whipping round she saw the boys twisted up in the snaking tendrils of the plant beneath her and Hermione standing on the far side of the room ringing her hands. “It's Devils Snare!”

Realisation hit her and she wrenched herself free of the creepers, adrenaline granting her a strength she hadn't known she possessed. As she neared the other witch she could hear her chanting fragments of a rhyme over and over as though trying to remember the end of it.

“Hurry up,” Ron was rapidly turning blue as the plant wound around his chest with grim determination and Alice watched in horror.

“Devils Snare, Devils Snare it likes the dark and damp… I can't remember what comes next!” she wailed.

Alice grabbed her arm as inspiration struck. “Fire.” Hermione immediately understood and quickly the two girls pulled out their wands aiming them at the plant. “Hyacincedia.” Almost immediately it began retreating from the blue flames they conjured and within moments Harry and Ron were stumbling free.

“Lucky you pay attention in Herbology Hermione,” Harry smiled at her as they joined the girls by the wall.”

“Yeah and lucky Alice arrived when she did, or we'd have been toast.” Ron rubbed his chest, “is that where we have to go then?” He nodded towards a small door in the corner.

“Looks like it, there's nowhere else for him to go… whoever he is.” Harry looked momentarily perplexed but quickly took a deep breath and smiled reassuringly at them all. “Come on then.”

The three of them moved towards the door and Alice took the opportunity, whilst there backs were turned, to check her left arm which she was suddenly aware was throbbing rather painfully. Peeling aside the torn remains of her sleeve she saw a long rather deep looking gash running down the length of her forearm and causing blood to make her hand slick. She hadn't noticed before because she was rather preoccupied with the imminent threat posed to her friends, but now that it had abated slightly her arm really hurt. Biting her lip and blinking away the tears that suddenly stung at her eyes she wrapped the torn ends of her sleeve tightly around the wound and, hoping she wouldn't lose too much blood and do something embarrassing like pass out, followed her friends.

A/N: I invented the spell name Hyacincendia (from the Latin name for a bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta and incendia which is Latin for fire) for the bluebell flames Hermione conjures a couple of times. I just felt it ought to have a name. Hope you all enjoy this latest instalment and remember to R&R!!!

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Chess Anyone?

“They're not birds, they're keys!” They were standing in a brightly lit chamber, so dazzling after the dark dungeon they had just come from, with high vaulting ceilings and what looked like a dome decorated with tiny mosaics in the centre. Alice couldn't be sure though as a huge mass of winged metal stood - or rather flew - between them and the roof.

“We must have to find the key for the door,” she whispered. Hermione turned to look at her and she surreptitiously shifted her arm behind her, as it gave another painful twinge, so that her friends couldn't see it. They had enough to worry about.

“How?”

“Over there,” Harry pointed after squinting around the room, “by that pillar, there's some brooms.”

They all rushed across the room, their footsteps echoing oddly in the vast room filled with metal and feathers, to find three broomsticks hovering patiently and awaiting use. Ron, and Harry immediately grabbed a broom each, but Hermione took one sceptical look at the broom and passed it to Alice.

“Here, it's probably better if - Alice, you're arm!” She was staring in horror at Alice's blood soaked sleeve and scarlet palm which she had unwittingly put out to accept the broom. It had been an automatic reaction.

“What happened?”

“Why didn't you say something?” Alice winced as Hermione took hold of her arm and examined the gash, hissing in sympathy when she saw it. The blood was now oozing sluggishly from the cut and had almost completely soaked the thin sleeve of her robe.

“I didn't want to, the dog - oh Harry no!” she protested as her friend ripped a strip from the bottom of his robes to bandage her arm. Gently wrapping it around it was a moment before he answered her.

“I'm so sorry Alice,” he gazed at her earnestly, “this is all my fault.”

“No it's not,” Hermione and Alice spoke at the same time then grinned shakily at each other.

“Harry,” she spoke earnestly, making sure that he was looking at her, “this is not your fault, you did not make me, or any of us for that matter come down here against our will and you certainly did not make that stupid dog of Hagrid's decide to take a chunk out of me.” She smile at him and waited till he gradually reciprocated before turning back to Hermione. “Come on then, give me the broom - I can still use my other arm.”

“You'd probably still be better on a broom,” Ron muttered, then looked sheepish when he saw she had heard him.

“Come on then,” she heard the renewed determination in Harry's voice. “Let's get this key.”

In the end it took barely a minute to locate and capture the right key as the others hemmed it in whilst Harry shot at it and pinned it against the wall with an audible crunch - she was so glad it couldn't feel anything. They quickly moved towards the door and Harry inserted the key in the lock before pausing to look at Alice again.

“Harry I'm fine!”

“Are you sure?”

“You have gone a bit pale,” Hermione peered at her anxiously.

This made her smile. “Hermione I have red hair, I'm always pale.”

“She has a point there,” Ron concurred. “So come on, let's get a move on before I change my mind about stopping this nameless thief.”

Harry took one last look at his friends, registered the determination in their faces, then nodded and turned the key.

The next chamber was much like the one they had just left, brilliantly lit and huge, but this time it was filled with a huge chess set which seemed to be set out as though halfway through a game and - the four of them stopped short in confusion.

“What the - ?”

“You?!”

Very slowly, so slowly that at first Alice thought he hadn't heard them, Professor Quirrell turned round.

“Potter,” he raised a hand to his turbaned head, “fancy running into you down here.” All trace of his stutter had vanished and his self satisfied smirk told Alice everything she needed to know about what exactly his intentions were. It was all too obvious that they had been chasing the wrong teacher all year.

“I don't understand.” Hermione sounded like the afraid little girl she actually was.

Quirrell's eyes never moved from Harry's face as he spoke he seemed fixated by him. “Really Miss Granger? How unusual,” when not stuttering his voice had an insidious quality which sent shivers down Alice's spine. “I assume you know what is at the end of this pathetic charade, otherwise you would not have followed me?”

“But Snape - ?” Ron clearly still didn't get it.

“Snape? Snape was a convenient scapegoat and he made that task so much easier for me always swooping about like an overgrown bat. Yes, he seems much more the type.”

“The type to do what? Steal?” Don't goad him Harry, Alice thought silently. As Quirrell continued to speak, explaining how Snape had actually tried to save Harry at the Quidditch match, Alice quickly glanced around the room. The majority of a set of black chessmen in various states of play stood between the first years and their teacher and there was only a narrow space around the walls as the majority of the floor was taken up by the chessboard. Alice's gaze followed this gap around the room until she located the sole door - it was barred by the white chessmen on the other side who seemed to be guarding it almost as much as their king. They were stuck, there was no way they could get through there before Quirrell.

“But why kill Harry?” Hermione's voice was shrill, even in her panicked state she obviously still could not repress the urge to ask questions. “Why not just take the Stone and go, you can have as much gold as you want, what has Harry to do with it?”

“Gold!” Those cold, emotionless eyes still would not leave her friends face. “You think I do this because I want to get rich?” He let out a bark of a laugh, “no I have other, higher motives,” a shadow seemed to pass across his face at this point and his earlier humour vanished, “although I have failed many times. The Dark Lord does not appreciate failure.”

Alice's heart seemed to jump a beat and she could almost feel the stillness within her ribs before it kick started again. “Voldemort?” That did it. Quirrell's face contorted as his eyes snapped towards Alice's.

“Do not mention his name. You are not even worthy to be in his presence let alone foul his name with your Mudblood tongue.”

“Don't you talk to her like that!” Ron's outrage was somewhat tempered by the fact that as he finished speaking Quirrell slowly drew his wand from within the folds of his robes.

Alice glanced to her left as she heard Hermione whimper and saw her friend inching slowly in front of Harry. This was getting out of control, they were going to have to act fast if they were going to get out of here whole. The problem was her brain still seemed to be three beats behind; she couldn't seem to comprehend that not only was her bumbling, stuttering Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher the would-be-thief, but that he was working for Voldemort to boot. It was too much to take in, and it didn't help that she was starting to feel faint and the pain from her arm from her arm was fogging her thinking. She prayed Neville had managed to convince a teacher they were in anger and someone would come after them, but she didn't like their chances.

“Wait.” All four of them jumped and then immediately began to look around for the source as a high pitched voice filled the room. “Let me see him - I demand to see him,” the voice added when Quirrell hesitated.

Alice's felt her stomach drop to the region of her scuffed and rather messy shoes - what a time to notice things like that she thought - she had a horrible suspicion about who that voice belonged to, but it couldn't be, could it? They all watched in mounting horror as Quirrell reached up to undo his turban and turned round to reveal -

“There's a face,” Ron's whisper sounded utterly revolted, “in his head.”

“Harry Potter,” it seemed to be an effort for him to speak, “See what I have become? Mere shadow and vapour…” he continued to spew bile as Alice found that her brain had suddenly managed to catch up with the rest of the world. They didn't need to get through that other door, just stop Quirrell from doing so, or delay him long enough that someone else might come and rescue them - although she didn't hold out much hope that they would get here in time. Quirrell was going to kill them, that much was obvious, it was just a question of when. Maybe they could use the chess set as a shield, or lure him back through to the key room and use the brooms to keep out of his reach but distract him enough that he wouldn't continue towards the Stone. She tried to consider how they might fight back, but they knew pitifully little defensive magic, partly because they were only first years and partly - she could appreciate the irony later - because their Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was so atrocious.

“ - I want you to witness my triumph Potter,” Voldemort was saying. “Dispose of the rest.”

Immediately the four of them threw themselves on the floor as Quirrell raised his wand a fired a blast of green light at the place where she and Ron had just been standing. Alice landed with a grunt as her arm throbbed again sending sparks of white light shooting across her vision.

“Come on!” Ron grabbed her other hand and pulled her to her feet running along the wall using the chessmen as a cover with pieces of mortar and dust raining down on them when Quirrell's spells hit the walls.

“Where's Harry?” she panted as they crouched behind a rook straining to see where Quirrell was but not be seen themselves at the same time. He seemed to be walking towards the other edge of the board, but she couldn't see properly because of all the pieces in the way.

“They went - they went round the other way.” Suddenly the two of them jumped as a huge explosion blew apart several chess pieces on the other side of the room.

“HERMIONE!” Alice screamed. She could here several shouts and was aware that several flashes of light lit up the pallid walls as spells were exchanged but the explosion had cast up so much dust and debris that she couldn't see what was going on properly. “We need to distract him, if he's confused then we stand a better chance.” She drew her own wand.

“Or he'll just get annoyed and kill us faster… or more painfully,” Ron grumbled but followed suit anyway.

“We need to split up so that he's surrounded - Ron,” she turned back to him before she ran off, “be careful.”

“You too.”

Running part of the way back around the room she stood behind one of the chessmen, distantly aware that one of his arms was missing, and fired a leg-locker curse at Quirrell's turned back. However what she had forgotten was that not only was he an adult and therefore vastly more experienced in magic than they were, but that he literally had eyes on the back of his head. Voldemort's face - she still couldn't get her head around that bit, even though the evidence clearly showed he was real - gave a wordless cry and Quirrell spun making the spell glance harmlessly off the shield he conjured. However before he could retaliate, another beam of light flew from the direction Ron had disappeared in and he turned away again. Several more spells were fired as Alice tried to rack her brain for a solution, they couldn't keep this up forever, and none of them knew anything advanced enough to neutralise the threat their professor posed.

Think Alice, think, how do you fight something impossible? Suddenly she was visited with a vision of Harry on that night so many months ago now leaping insanely onto the back of a rampaging troll, before she knocked it out. Maybe they couldn't knock Quirrell out, but it was better than nothing.

“Wingardium Leviosa,” she whispered pointing at the pawn nearest to Quirrell. Slowly at first and then, like a dormant creature awakening from slumber, with increasing speed then pawn rose in the air and she directed it towards the teacher, he soon realised what was happening however and made a slashing motion with his own wand through the air causing the pawn to crash to the floor and topple onto its side sending tremors through the ground beneath them. It was enough however, her friends all picked up immediately on what she was trying to achieve and soon enough chess pieces were soaring through the air and crashing around Quirrell right, left and centre. It was chaos and it was keeping wonderfully occupied from firing any curses at them.

“Get on with it!” The high voice sounded apoplectic with rage; the howling scream echoed around the chamber punctuated by crashes and shouts as the battle - if it could be called that - ensued.

“Alice.” She whirled at the sound of a voice to find Harry running up to her, crouched low, his hair white with dust and smudges spattering his face. Relief flooded through her at the sight of him and she felt the urge to hug him. But not now.

“We need to do something,” he gasped, “we can't keep this up - you especially.” He put out a hand to steady her as she swayed slightly.

“I'm fine,” she brushed off his concern as she sent another chessman flying indignantly through the air; there were more important things to consider. “We -” She was cut off as another chessman was blown to rubble and a cry rang out from the other side of the room before being cut short abruptly.

“That was Ron,” Harry's voice was suddenly a hoarse whisper.

“I'll get him, just keep going.” She took off again round the room making sure to keep herself hidden from Quirrell's view, which was much easier now the board was littered with the shattered remains of the pieces. As she ran she was aware that she felt strangely light and that her legs seemed to be disconnected from the rest of her body. Please don't let me pass out. She struggled determinedly forwards and after what seemed an age, but could in actuality not have been more than a few seconds, Ron's legs came into view. Quickly she flopped down beside him, she wasn't actually sure if she instructed her legs to do this or if they simply gave out beneath her, and checked him over. He was still breathing - she ducked as more spells flew over her head and ricocheted off the wall - and he seemed intact despite a large gash on his forehead which was slowly staining his hair a deeper shade of red. Taking the corner of her robes she pressed it to the cut to try and stem the bleeding and with her other hand attempted to protect them both from the flying debris that now seemed to fill the whole chamber - Quirrell's new strategy seemed to be to blast the entire room to pieces in an effort to get them. However she found that the numbness in her legs had spread to her injured arm and her fingers couldn't seem to hold her wand properly which fell from her fingers and rolled out of reach. Turning back she concentrated on holding down the cloth, biting down hard on her lower lip as pain lanced up her arm in the process.

There was a muffled yell and then abruptly silence descended on the room.

“Come out Potter, its over.”

Alice looked around and felt her stomach drop another few inches. Standing in the centre of the chess board amid all the destruction and debris was Quirrell - his head looking bizarrely tiny without the turban - and in his vice like grasp he held -

“Hermione,” Alice moaned softly, she tried to move to do something, anything, but her legs had ceased to obey her and she couldn't even get to her wand. The crunch of stone grinding underfoot drew her eyes away towards where Harry was emerging holding his wand above his head in surrender. They had failed.

“Please,” he begged, “don't hurt her.”

“Harry don't!” Hermione tried to squirm away, but Quirrell held her tightly and she could do nothing except gaze imploringly at Harry who had stopped several yards away from them.

“Don't hurt her,” he repeated.

Quietly at first and then swelling so that it rang around the chamber and seemed to fill it entirely, a chilling cackle sounded throughout the room. “How touching, you so remind me of your mother Potter.” The unconcealed glee in Voldemort's voice was if possible even more terrifying than when he had been shouting. “She said much the same thing before I killed her. Like mother like son. Kill him”

“No!” Hermione shouted as Quirrell lunged at Harry, grabbing him by the wrists. After that it became confusing as Alice's vision began to swim. Everyone seemed to be shouting at once, someone was howling in pain, Voldemort was screaming orders and she wasn't sure if Quirrell still had a grip of Harry or Hermione or who was struggling on the ground. White lights began to dance across her vision as she tried to force herself to her feet and she shook her head to clear them but this just made things worse. The clamour in the room seemed to meld together into a single cacophony of noise as she glanced down at Ron. Was that her blood or his on his face? She didn't know. The last thing she was aware was as the light consumed her was a sudden increase in the level of shouting before the sound, and all her other senses, cut out completely.

A/N: Well there you go, finally another chapter. Apologies for the inordinate length of time since I last upload. My computer got virused (is that even a word?) and I've spent ages trying to recover things etc. As compensation I'll give you a few chapters at once.

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In Which Trevor Goes Missing Again

“Alice,” she could hear a distant voice calling her name and tried to struggle through the fog enveloping her towards it. “Alice, can you hear me?” The voice sounded familiar, and it definitely wasn't Quirrell, her disembodied mind paused at this thought until she remembered why Quirrell was a threat - he tried to kill them, Ron, Hermione, Harry.

“Harry,” her voice was a croak as she opened her eyes. The sunlight streaming through the window was blinding and for a second she saw nothing but the outline of several silhouettes looming over her. “Where's Harry?” More urgently this time as they came into focus and she saw Ron, Neville and Hermione sitting by her bed, Ron looked rather pale she noted.

“He's here, he's safe.” The relief she felt at this news was evident in Hermione's voice. Looking over she saw Harry lying in the bed next to her - clearly they had been taken to the hospital wing - intact but unconscious. As she pushed herself up on her elbows to get a better look at them all she realised her arm no longer hurt. Pulling up the sleeve of her nightgown she found that her arm had been completely healed and that the only evidence that there had ever been anything wrong with it was a long pale line of new, porcelain pale skin running the length of her forearm and barely discernable against the creamier flesh around it.

“Madam Pomfrey healed it, she said we'll be fine,” Ron was now speaking, “we're all going to be fine.” All traces of his head wound were gone, Alice noticed, as he grinned broadly at her. “Everyone's talking about what happened, the whole school knows. We're famous!”

Alice smiled at his enthusiasm before glancing ruefully at Hermione, “I'd settle for just being normal.” The three of them laughed at her remark. “How long have I been unconscious for then?”

“Not long, it's nearly lunchtime.”

“Really?” If Ron had been a dog his ears would have perked up at this news; as it was his eyes were positively gleaming, “I'm famished.”

“Well you can go and get something to eat in a minute, but first you have to tell me what happened. Is the Stone alright? Neville, what happened to you when we left?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair as the three of them focused on him, although Ron and Hermione had doubtless heard the tale already. “Well… well I went - went and got Professor McGonagall like you told me to. I told her about the dog and the harp and the door and I don't think she believed me at first,” his voice was becoming stronger now, “but when I said you'd all gone down she went really white. Then Snape overheard and convinced her to send for Dumbledore and they all went rushing off to the third floor after telling everyone to stay in the Great Hall. They had forgotten about me so I followed,” the way he said it made it obvious he had no idea where he had gotten the temerity to do this from, “and Dumbledore was already there, the dog was asleep and he was just about to go through the trapdoor.”

Ron whistled softly in approval, “I always said he was brilliant; how did he know?”

“I don't know what happened after that because he spotted me and told me to wait there.”

At this point Hermione took charge of the story. “When did you pass out Alice?” She nodded as Alice told her and then continued. “Well you saw most of it really, but after that Harry hung onto Quirrell and it was as though he was burning him or scalding him or something, but it was hurting Harry too -I'm not sure exactly what happened because it got a bit confusing. Then all the teachers suddenly came running in and I've never seen Dumbledore look so angry, no wonder they say he was the only wizard You-Know-Who -”

“Voldemort,” Alice interjected as the others flinched.

“Yeah… well I can see why he was afraid of him. Anyway then he pulled Quirrell and Harry apart and they both sort of fainted and then I couldn't really see properly because all the teachers were around them and McGonagall pulled me away and kept asking if I was alright and then there was a horrible screeching noise and a rushing sound and then…” She paled slightly, “it was like smoke but more solid and it sort of rushed out from where Quirrell was and nearly knocked the teachers over - I think it was… HIM… leaving Professor Quirrell. I'm not sure.”

The other three looked very sombre all of a sudden and Alice had a horrible suspicion she knew why. “He's dead isn't he? Quirrell I mean.” They nodded and Alice had the odd experience that she had no idea what to feel. He had tried to kill them and help the most evil wizard for generations return to power, so she should be glad he was dead, but at the same time his death was their fault - partly at least and she didn't like how that made her feel. Never mind the fact that she didn't want anyone to have to have died, no matter what they had done, surely there must have been something else they could do?

She didn't have time to ponder it though as Madam Pomfrey chose that moment to emerge from her study, and on seeing that Alice was awake bustled over to examine her whilst shooing out her friends claiming the patient needed rest.

“Bye Alice,” Hermione stood up and it was only then Alice realised that she had to let go of Harry's hand to do so.

“You better go and get Ron fed up,” she smirked, “otherwise he might pass out again.”

After that Madam Pomfrey insisted that she stay in bed, at least fro the rest of the day and, despite all that had happened since she came to Hogwarts, Alice still lacked confidence enough that she didn't dare argue with her. However this meant that she spent the rest oft the afternoon being thoroughly bored as she had finished the only non-medical book in the Hospital Wing within an hour and Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let her touch any of the others. This left her to watch several owls soaring on the updrafts high above the castle through the window, but both the owls and Alice soon lost interest in this activity and she was reduced to watching the dust motes swirl in the light beams thrown by the panes of glass and counting Harry's breathing. Really, she considered as she watched him, it was a miracle any of them had survived at all. She wondered if they would all have gone charging ahead had they known that Voldemort was waiting for them at the other end, no matter how weak. She had a feeling they probably would have, as none of them had really given much thought to what the possible consequences might have been. Well, she qualified to herself, Hermione might have; her friend did always seem to have everything thought out twenty paces ahead of the rest of the world.

“Oi Evans!” She sat up enthusiastically as Madam Pomfrey let in two more visitors after tea time. “Who said you could go off and have fun without us?”

“It's unsporting really when you think about it.”

“Especially when we were there when you found the dog in the first place.”

“And considering all the trouble you wee firsties got yourselves into you really ought to have taken someone responsible along.”

Alice grinned up at the twins as they strode in, ignoring Madam Pomfrey's order that they hush, and plonked themselves down in the seats vacated by Ron and Neville earlier. “When has the word responsible ever been applied to you two?”

They appeared to ponder this for a moment, “Well -”

“There was the time McGonagall -”

“Wrote a letter to Mum -”

“Saying we were responsible -”

“For utter havoc at school.” They cracked identical smirks at her as she rolled her eyes.

“Speaking of havoc,” Fred nodded towards Harry's prone form, “what's wrong with his scar-headed-ness? Hey,” he exclaimed as she swatted his arm, “you're supposed to be sick!”

“I'm not sick, just going out of my mind with boredom. And nothing's wrong with Harry exactly, at least Madam Pomfrey doesn't think there is - he just needs a chance to recharge his batteries.”

Both twins stared at her utterly nonplussed and she sighed as she began to explain what a battery was.

“Do you think he'll wake up soon then? It's just we were going to send him a toilet seat, as a token of esteem - it was Mum's idea.”

Alice, who had heard a lot about their mother from Ron, seriously doubted this, but she let it pass. “I don't know Madam Pomfrey says it might be in a few minutes or it might be a few days, he -”

“A few days?” They all turned towards the door as the stunned voice spoke. Standing in the doorway looking as though he might be about to explode was the Quidditch Captain Oliver Wood. He had evidently come to see how his star seeker was. “A few days,” he repeated walking in dazedly and staring down at Harry, “but the Quidditch final is tomorrow… we're supposed to win.”

“I know Oliver, it's tough luck, but it's not Harry's fault.”

“We'll just have to try and win without him.”

“There's still six people on the team.”

Wood's distraught eyes swung from the Weasley's twins to Alice and back again before his gaze suddenly focused and switched back to Alice. “You could do it, you were brilliant that day at training,” he was suddenly businesslike but Alice could still detect a note of pleading in his voice.

“What?” She stared at him.

“Aaw come on Oliver, that's not fair -”

“She only just woke up -”

“Although apparently is not sick -”

“But still it's unfair to ask her to do it.”

Alice smiled gratefully at the twins as they came to the end of their passionate defence. There was no way she could do it… could she? She couldn't get up in front of the entire school, with the entire outcome of the match resting on her, and not mess it up. She couldn't. She looked up and found all three of them staring at her hopefully, although Fred and George were slightly less blatant about it, and flushed to the roots of her hair. They were counting on her, no matter what the twins said they stood little chance of winning against Ravenclaw without a seeker. Could she do it? Gryffindor was counting on her.

“Alright.” The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

“Really?!” Oliver looked as though Christmas had come early.

Her wide green (or brown depending on who you asked) eyes flicked uncertainly between the twins and Wood for a moment as she tried to decide; there was still a chance to back out after all.

“You were great that day at practice,” Fred encouraged, an unusually serious expression on his normally jovial face.

She took a deep breath to clear her thinking, then realised that this probably wasn't one of those things that you should take time to think about. “Sure,” she smiled timidly.

“Brilliant, ok then,” Oliver immediately began gabbling about all the things they had to do in twenty-four hours to get her match ready and how she should come down to the Quidditch Pitch the minute she was discharged. He then practically ran the length of the Hospital Wing, as the twins chuckled at his antics, to ask Madam Pomfrey when this would be.

“Certainly not!” The three of them heard her outraged cry and moments later she emerged from her office with her face almost as red as the robes she was wearing. “I will not allow one of my patients to go off playing Quidditch when they should be in here recovering.”

“But she's not even ill,” Wood bemoaned following after her as a look of growing desperation appeared on his face. “Look she's conscious and everything.”

“Yes I can see that thank you,” her tone was clipped and impatient, “but she wasn't for at least fifteen hours, and she lost a lot of blood so she is going to stay here where I can keep an eye on her. Now out - all of you,” she added glaring at the twins, “I will not have my patients over excited.”

Wood seemed to collapse in on himself momentarily, but then seemed to be seized with a new idea and promptly marched out of the Hospital Wing, followed moments later - once they had bid Alice goodbye and promised to send her her very own toilet seat - by the twins.

“Honestly,” the matron muttered as she looked Alice over suspiciously before returning to her office, “when will people learn this is a healing environment and not a circus?”

This left Alice to lie in bed once more staring at Harry, the ceiling, and anything else she could see feeling alternately bored and disappointed that she had let the Gryffindor team down. It wasn't long however before she heard the quick step of feet in the corridor outside and none other than the headmaster came striding into the room. Walking over to Harry's bed he looked down at him for a moment as though to reassure himself he was still there and in one piece and then moved over to stand by Alice.

“How are you this evening Miss Evans?” He smiled slightly as his bright blue eyes twinkled down at her kindly through thin framed spectacles.

“Fine thank you sir.” Her voice came out as a soft whisper in the presence of such a well respected wizard. Why had he come to talk to her? Surely if this was about what had happened he would talk to them all together, or wait till Harry woke up? Perhaps that was it - he had merely come to see if Harry was alright.

“I am glad; it would be unfortunate if something had happened to one of Hogwarts most promising young students.”

Alice flushed at his words and tried to suppress the sceptical look that flashed across her face.

“You disagree?” he enquired gently.

“I… I suppose I never really thought about it before… Hermione's the really brainy one, I just like books, in class…” she really wasn't sure why she was telling him all this, a simple yes or no would probably have sufficed

“In class you try not to be noticed am I right?”

Alice doubted if Dumbledore had ever been wrong about anything in his life, it was inconceivable that anyone so… the only word she could think of was awe-inspiring, could be. She just nodded.

“Well,” as Dumbledore looked at her his eyes danced merrily, “I'll let you in on a secret shall I?”

Alice stared at him curiously; her old shyness seemed to have returned with full force and captured her tongue.

“I happen to have been sent the marks for some of your exams, and you and Miss Granger seem to be fighting over the top marks in all your subjects.”

This piece of news was so unexpected that Alice could think of nothing to say and just kept staring at him - she was aware she must look like such an idiot and of the irony of this fact.

“Yes Harry is lucky he has found such good and loyal friends as yourselves and Mr Weasley. I have a feeling he will need to know who his friends are in the future.” Alice didn't like the sense of foreboding that crept over her at his words. “But on a slightly more delightful note I come as the bearer of glad tidings.” His eyes, which had been solemn a moment before, were suddenly twinkling again. “I have received a visit from Professor McGonagall who was approached in turn by Mr Oliver Wood. Both of them it seems are of the opinion that you should play in tomorrows Quidditch match provided you are fit and have requested of me that I gain Madam Pomfrey's permission for such an endeavour. What do you say?”

Alice hadn't realised how much she really had wanted to play, even if she did have to get up in front of everyone, until her heart leapt in her chest at his words.

“Yes please,” she just managed to squeak the words out before her throat closed up on her again, and there was she thinking her timidity had improved over the past year.

“Well then,” the headmaster smiled at her kindly, “That just leaves me to inform Madam Pomfrey of the fact then.” As he turned to walk towards the matron's office a thought suddenly occurred to Alice.

“Sir?” It came out as a tiny whisper but he must have had the ears of a bat because he turned to look back at her enquiringly.

“Yes Miss Evans?”

“The - the Stone… What happened to it?” She wasn't sure why she hadn't thought to ask before.

“Ah the Stone,” the corners of his eyes crinkled upwards at her question. “The Stone is perfectly safe and has been returned to its rightful owner who will decide what is to be done with it.”

“Do you think Mr Flamel will keep it sir?” She didn't realise she'd asked the question until she closed her mouth at the end of it.

“Oh, you know about Nicolas?” he looked delighted at the news, “You did do the thing properly, didn't you? Well Nicolas and I shall have a little chat about that very matter once you have won that Quidditch match tomorrow. Although, ” he looked rather bashful, “as headmaster I really shouldn't be so biased about such things.” He grinned at her conspiratorially.

“I'll try sir.”

As it turned out Madam Pomfrey was a hard woman to convince, but once Dumbledore had decided to do something there was little anyone could do to sway him. Eventually she agreed to let Alice play on the condition that she stayed in the hospital wing that night and came straight back to get checked when it was over. Wood wasn't too happy about this when he found out, but he seemed to realise he was lucky to be getting a seeker at all and so wisely kept quiet on the matter - at least in front of the matron.

The next morning Hermione, Ron and Neville came to the Hospital Wing to escort her down to the pitch - once Hermione had dashed the length of the room to check that Harry was alright and that his condition hadn't somehow deteriorated through the night. “He'll be so upset to have missed the match,” was her comment as she smoothed back his hair fondly.

Standing with the team listening to Wood give his pep talk before they went out onto the pitch Alice didn't hear a word of it, or the jokes that the twins kept trying to crack to reassure her, she was too busy trying not to be sick or pass out again. It was as though someone had hit the fast forward button and everything was speeding by so fast that she was getting motion sickness. The match itself was much the same. She was barely aware of the game going on below her - although the upside of this was also that she barely heard the roiling crowd of pupils yelling themselves hoarse in the stands either - all she could think about was that she had to find the snitch. Everyone was counting on her. She had been given Harry's broom for the match which meant that when she did eventually spot the snitch circling the Ravenclaw goal posts she barrelled down the length of the pitch easily outstripping the opposing seeker and she could barely believe it when her fingers actually closed around the tiny golden sphere.

She was barely aware of the stands erupting as the entire team, led by Fred and George, descended on her yelling and cheering. It was with a wrench that she finally had to tear herself away from the celebrations which broke out on the pitch the minute they touched down as she had to report back to the Hospital Wing. When she got there, trailed by an ecstatic Ron and Neville and an anxious Hermione, Madam Pomfrey declared - much to her disappointment - that she looked peaky and had to get straight back into bed. The matron looked so ferocious as she stood there muttering about dangerous sports that Alice didn't dare argue with her, and when they tried Hermione and Ron were soon quelled.

The prospect of spending another interminable day stuck in the Hospital Wing did not appeal, but she had reckoned of course without the twins decamping half the party which had been set up in the common room down to her bedside. Well wishers flooded in to congratulate her at such a rate that she was left feeling quite embarrassed, and was almost glad when Madam Pomfrey kicked them all out.

The next morning she was woken abruptly by an excited squeal from the bed next to her and as she opened her eyes blearily she saw Hermione launching herself at a newly conscious Harry.

“Harry, you're alright! Oh we were so worried you've been unconscious for three days nearly, Madam Pomfrey said you'd be fine but we were beginning to worry and - oh it's so good to see you!”

“Give him a minute Hermione,” Ron chuckled from where he was sitting at the end of Alice's bed. “Morning,” he said when he noticed her. “Sorry if we woke you, Hermione got a little over excited there.” They both grinned as they watched Harry pat Hermione nervously on the back before she released him.

“Thanks Hermione… Is everyone alright?” He looked concerned as he saw Alice in the bed next to him. “Alice?”

“I'm fine,” she smile at his anxious face, “Madam Pomfrey's just being overly cautious after…” she trailed off unsure how to tell him.

“What is it?” He looked at each of his friends in turn. None of them spoke until eventually Ron broke the silence.

“The Quidditch final was yesterday mate… Alice had to replace you.”

“Oh… oh.” For a moment she wasn't sure if he was upset or not. “How did we do?”

“We won,” Hermione peered at him as though she thought he might be about to cry, however exactly the opposite happened as a wide grin split his face.

“That's brilliant Alice! I always knew you could do it… the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor, that's fantastic!”

Seeing that he really was fine about it they all launched into an account of the match for him, with Alice subtly correcting Ron and Hermione every so often as, if they were to be believed, she had won the match single-handed. Their enthusings were interrupted however by the reappearance of Professor Dumbledore.

“If I might speak to Harry alone for a moment;” it wasn't really a question.

Slipping quickly out of bed Alice reached for her dressing gown and padded softly after Ron and Hermione out into the corridor.

“Ron!” Hermione admonished as the redhead tried to listen through the keyhole. “Behave! Besides, I'm sure Harry will probably tell us everything afterwards anyway.”

She was right as usual. And although Alice was officially given the all clear by the matron she spent much of the rest of the day sitting by Harry's bed discussing recent events and pondering what would happen now.

“Well I don't care what happens so long as I get some treacle pudding,” Ron observed hungrily as they walked down to the end of term feats that evening. Harry and Alice laughed as Hermione exclaimed at his greed, but the sound soon cut off the minute they entered the Great Hall.

“Maybe we should have brought the cloak,” she joked nervously as the entire room stared at the in fascinated silence. Then suddenly from the back of the room came the sound of clapping, followed by a piercing whistle - that was almost definitely Fred or George Alice thought with chagrin - and within moments the whole room had erupted into tumultuous applause. Trying to ignore the noise the first years almost ran the length of the room until they found where Neville was sitting and, their faces turning an admirable scarlet, sat down quickly next to him.

As the ruckus died down George lent over and grinned at them all, “glad to see you can enter a room without attracting attention to yourselves.”

Alice scowled at him as Dumbledore began to speak. When he reached the point in his speech pertaining to house points three quarters of the room visibly slumped in their seats. But…

“Firstly to Mr Neville Longbottom, for common sense in remembering the crucial fact that we teachers are here to help you all through challenging times, I award ten house points.” The entire room seemed to be holding his breath, was Dumbledore really going to change the points?

“Next for loyalty, outstanding courage and sheer determination I award Misses Hermione Granger and Alice Evans and Mr Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter a further fifty house points… each.”

Alice didn't think she had ever been so happy; they had done it, they had won the House Cup for Gryffindor! The room had erupted at the news and all five of them had disappeared under a crowd of pupils - not all of whom were Gryffindor - who were trying to thank and congratulate them. When Alice did eventually manage to catch a glimpse of her friends again she saw that Harry and Ron were beaming from ear to ear, tears were streaming down Hermione's cheeks and Neville's face was as red as she was sure hers was. For the second night in a row an impromptu party broke out in the common room courtesy of the Weasley twins, even their stern older brother Percy seemed to be enjoying himself, although he did shout a bit when they climbed onto a table and started to dance. On the whole no one in Gryffindor tower got much sleep that night, although even without the loud celebrations going on Alice doubted she would have slept a wink; so much had happened in the past few days!

As though to make up for this very fact the last few weeks of term seemed to fly by. Exam results came out and they were all relieved to have passed, especially Neville and - rather unnecessarily in Alice's opinion - Hermione who had been sure she would somehow manage to fail everything, much to Ron's amusement. As for Alice herself she was pleased to discover that she had managed to take top marks in Transfiguration - Hermione grudgingly congratulated her on that one - and they had both tied for first place in Charms. After that it was just a case of preparing to go home again, a prospect which neither Alice nor Harry were particularly looking forward to, and having one last laugh at the fact that someone - she strongly suspected two identical someones - had switched all the heads of the statues on the second floor which meant that the teachers had to spend most of the afternoon putting them back again.

“Well I guess I'll see you all next term then,” Alice sighed as they were waiting on Platform nine and three-quarters to re-enter the real world.

“I can always see if Mum lets you all come and stay over the summer, I'm sure she would,” he stepped quickly out of the way as a group of Slytherin fourth years shoved past them roughly and began muttering about manners.

“I'm sure your mother's probably got enough -”

“Where's Trevor?!” Alice turned at the sound of the plaintive wail behind her just as the four of them reached the barrier.

Hermione tutted impatiently. “You haven't lost him again Neville?”

“I'll help you look,” Alice offered when it seemed he was about to cry.

Harry glanced at his watch looking worried, “I -”

“You lot go on through, you don't want to keep your families waiting. Go on,” she repeated when they seemed about to argue, “you're holding up the queue.”

Eventually they acquiesced and with one last hug, much to the boys embarrassment, her three best friends were gone leaving her to help Neville search, once again, for his toad which was finally located hiding under a pile of trunks at the other end of the platform.

“Thanks Alice, Nan would have killed me if I'd lost him, especially on the way home.”

“What are friends for?” she smiled at him as they made there way back to the gate and found that there was no longer a queue to get through.”

“Well,” Neville turned to her once they were on the other side, “I suppose I'll see you in September.”

“Have a good holiday Neville,” she gave him a quick hug too and turned to walk towards where she had spotted Carol from the Home was standing, but she hadn't gone three paces when he called after her.

“Alice… do you mind if I write to you in the holidays? It's just I never had a friend to write to before.”

She turned back and saw his anxious face. “Sure Neville, that would be great,” and with one last wave she turned and made her way back to reality.

A/N: So that's it for book one, please R&R to let me know what you think. Also for Harry's conversation with Dumbledore I imagined it ran along similar lines to the conversation in the book sans the bits about how Harry got the Stone from the mirror of course.

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