"Had a good Christmas?" Oliver said the day after the ball in the common room. I grew excited, thinking of his reaction when I told him that my twin and I had Firebolts. And then, without waiting for an answer, he sat down, lowered his voice, and said, "I've been doing some thinking over Christmas, Daisy. After the last match, you know. If the Dementors come to the next one...I mean...we can't afford you to - well -"

Oliver broke off, looking awkward.

"I'm working on it." I said quickly. "Professor Lupin said he'd train me and Harry to ward the Dementors off. We should be starting this week; he said he'd have time after Christmas."

"Ah." Oliver said, his expression clearing. "Well, in that case - I didn't really want to lose you as a Seeker, Daisy. And have you ordered a new broom yet?"

"No." I said grinning. "Even better, Oliver..."

"What?" Oliver questioned, his face brightening at the sight of my excited face.

"Wait here. I'll show you." I dashed up to the dorm and snatched my Firebolt. I sprinted back down to the common room holding it over my head.

"A - a - is that - is - a FIREBOLT?!" Oliver whispered, his eyes going wide.

I passed him it, grinning. "Yes, yes it is!"

He stared down at it, mouthing in awe. He looked like he couldn't talk.

Then he fainted.

~~~

At eight o'clock on Thursday evening (which was the time that Professor Lupin had scheduled) Harry and I left Gryffindor Tower for the History of Magic classroom. It was dark and empty when we arrived - which was kinda spooky - but we lit the lamps with our wands and we waited only five minutes when Professor Lupin turned up, carrying a large packing case, which he heaved onto Professor Binns' desk.

"What's that?" Harry and I said simultaneously.

"Another Boggart." Lupin said, stripping off his cloak. "I've been combing the school ever since Tuesday, and very luckily, found this one lurking inside Mr Filch's filing cabinet. It's the nearest we'll get to a real Dementor. The Boggart will turn into a Dementor when he sees Harry, so we'll be able to practise on him. I can store him in my office when we're not using him; there's a cupboard under my desk he'll like."

"Kay." I grinned.

"So..." Professor Lupin had taken out his own wand, and indicated that we should do the same. "The spell I am going to try and teach you is highly advanced magic, you two - well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus Charm."

"How does it work?" Harry said nervously.

"Well, when it works correctly, it conjures up a Patronus." Lupin said. "Which is a kind of Anti-Dementor - a guardian which acts as a shield between you and the Dementor. The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the Dementor feeds upon - hope, happiness, the desire to survive - but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the Dementors can't hurt it. But I must warn you, twins, that the Charm might be too advanced for you. Many qualified wizards have difficulty with it."

"What does a Patronus look like?" I said curiously.

"Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it."

"And how do you conjure it?"

"With an incantation, which will work only if you are concentrating, with all your might, on a single, very happy memory."

I cast about for a happy memory. There were so many. I remembered Oliver's face when he saw the Firebolt, and sniggered.

"Right." Harry and I chorused.

"The incantation is this -" Lupin cleared his throat, "expecto patronum!"

"Expecto patronum!" I repeated under my breath with Harry. "Expecto patronum."

"Concentrating hard on your happy memory?"

"Oh - yeah -" I said quickly, forcing my thoughts back to Oliver fainting, and repeated the spell over and over again until something whooshed suddenly out of the end of my wand - a second later, out of Harry's, too; it looked like a wisp of silvery gas.

Then we tried it out on the Boggart. Harry stood slightly closer to it than me so that it would pretend to be a Dementor.

A wave of piercing cold broke over me as the Dementor approached. "Expecto patronum!" Harry and I yelled. "Expecto patronum! Expecto -"

But the classroom and the Dementor were dissolving...I was falling again through thick white fog, and my mother's voice was louder than ever, echoing inside my head - "Not the twins! Not them! Please - I'll do anything -"

"Stand aside - stand aside, girl -"

"Hello Daisy Potter...my name is Tom Riddle..."

"Cooperate, girly -"

"Crucio..."

"I'm going to sit here and watch you die, Daisy Potter..."

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Daisy!" 

I jerked back to life. I was lying flat on my back on the floor - so was Harry.

"Are you alright?" Lupin said.

"Yeah..." I pulled myself up on one of the desks and leant against it.

"Here -" Lupin handed us both Chocolate Frogs. "Eat these before we try again. I didn't expect you to do it first time. In fact, I would have been astounded if you had."

"It's getting worse." I muttered, biting the Frog's head off. "I could hear her louder this time - and them - Voldemort - Floppy - that Muggle -"

Lupin looked paler than usual.

"Guys, if you don't want to continue, I will more than understand -"

But we wanted to continue. And so we had another go. This time I thought of another memory. My first Quidditch match.

But when the Boggart came out again, white fog obscured my senses...big, blurred shapes were moving around me...then came a new voice, a man's voice, shouting, panicking -

"Lily, take the kids and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off -"

The sounds of someone stumbling from a room - a door bursting open - a cackle of high-pitched laughter -

"I want your powers..."

"I said, cooperate..."

"I need someone to satisfy my needs and be too afraid to tell anyone..."

"Kill the others..."

"Daisy! Daisy...wake up..."

Lupin was tapping me hard on the face. This time it was a minute before I understood why I was lying on a dusty classroom floor.

"I heard our dad." I mumbled. "That's the first time I've ever heard him - he tried to take Voldemort on himself, to give our mum time to run for it..."

"Me too." Harry said quietly from a chair he was slumped in, obviously having woken up before me.

I suddenly realised that there were tears on my face. 

"You two heard James?" Lupin said in a strange voice.

"Yeah..." I looked up. "Why - you didn't know our dad, did you?"

"I - I did, as a matter of fact." Lupin said. "We were friends at Hogwarts. Listen, Daisy, Harry - perhaps we should leave it here for tonight. This charm is ridiculously advanced...I shouldn't have suggested putting you through this..." 

But we refused again, our determination coming through. I thought of a good, happy memory...our last day at Muggle school. That day was FABULOUS. 

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" I screamed as the Dementor advanced. "EXPECTO PATRONUM! EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

The screaming inside my head had started again - except this time, it sounded as though it was coming from a badly tuned radio. Softer and louder and softer again...and I could still see the Dementor...it had halted...and then a small, silver shadow came bursting out of the end of my wand, a huge one out of Harry's, to hover between us and the Dementor, and though my legs felt like water, I was still on my feet...though for how much longer, I wasn't sure...

"Riddikulus!" Lupin roared, springing forwards.

There was a loud crack, and our cloudy Patronus's vanished along with the Dementor; we sank into chairs, me feeling as exhausted as if I'd just run a mile, my legs shaking. 

"Excellent!" Lupin said. "Excellent, twins! That was definitely a start!"

~~~

In Defence Against the Dark Arts, I was completing the list again.

I got everyone in the class to break their quills and repair them with Repairo as many times as possible.

SNAP! "Repairo!" I said, repairing my quill. 

SNAP! "Repairo!" 

SNAP! "Repairo!"

"Class, please stop the snapping and repairing!"

We continued anyway of course.

"Detention to the next person to either snap their quill or repair it." 

But I had to repair my quill as I had just snapped it.

"Repairo!" I hissed.

"Detention, Daisy."

I made a paper airplane and threw it at his head. It hit him, and he turned to me with an exasperated look. 

"Please refrain yourself from throwing paper airplanes during class, Daisy."

He continued his lecture. My hand shot up.

"Yes, Daisy?" Lupin asked.

"Sir, I'm the voice of the class, and the class says fuck off." I said matter-of-factly.

Professor Lupin ignored me.

I whispered and giggled with Draco beside me, sitting in the seat beside the wall, not stopping even when Professor Lupin told us to.

"Daisy, move up to the front, please." He said, pointing at an empty desk. 

"But sir, I have to hold up the wall!" I said. 

"No you don't, now move up here please."

"It'll fall down if I don't hold it up."

"Now, please."

"I have to hold up the wall, professor!" I insisted.

"Fine, but no more talking." Lupin sighed, defeated.

Then I started making motorbike noises. Lupin looked like he was going to tear his hair out.

"Sir," I said, waving my hands in the air again, "sir, are negative numbers depressed?"

"No Daisy, for they are numbers." Lupin sighed.

"Are Nintendo developing a nuclear bomb, do you think?" I pondered.

"I don't think so, Daisy." Lupin sighed.

"Sir!" I said loudly, my eyes going wide. "Are YOU developing a nuclear bomb?!"

"No, Daisy. Can we please return to the lesson?"

The next lesson I sneaked in to the room before class and hid a crumbly muffin in his bag. When we all went in to sit down, and when Lupin searched through his bag for his file, the muffin fell out. He sighed in annoyance, most likely because it had crumbled all over his things.

"Sir, are you a part of the government conspiracy?" I asked, waving my hand in the air.

"No, I am not, Daisy." He sighed.

"Do velociraptors throw bananas at you while you're studying, Professor?" I asked.

"No, Daisy." 

"Does Merlin ride dinosaurs in your house?" 

"No."

Then I started to ask about his childhood. 

"Where did you grow up, Professor?"

"Are these questions really necessary, Daisy?" Lupin sighed.

"Who were your childhood friends?" I grinned.

"Daisy -"

"What were your parents like?"

Then he just started ignoring me.

The next thing on the list was 'get a detention and don't show up'. So I took out the dragon's heart I stole from Potions and threw it at Lupin's face. He reeled back when the heart smacked him in the face, making a disgusting wet sound. I nearly pissed myself laughing. 

"Detention." Lupin said.

Then I took out the fish I stole from Care of Magical Creatures (it could breath out of water, and it was still alive) and threw it at his face too. 

It fell to the ground after smacking his face, flopping around and opening and closing its mouth. It flopped out of the classroom, headed down the corridor, and around the corner.

Lupin sent me to Dumbledore again. I grabbed a first year on my way there and presented him with a fake note (come to room nineteen to pick up the files) from a non-existent teacher (Professor Baggins) to send to Professor Lupin.

Then on my way back I sent another first year to the room with yet another fake note from a non-existent teacher. 

Then, when I was supposed to be going to my detention later, with the rest of my clan members I taped his door shut.

In the next lesson, I took out crisps, Jelly Slugs, and Chocolate Frogs. We all feasted in the middle of class. I took out my recorder and started playing Eastenders on it while Lupin tried to teach.

Next, I got up and started flipping tables over, throwing people's pencil cases at the wall, and generally acted like moron. When Professor Lupin asked me, confused, what I was doing, I replied that it was a result of Lupinitis. 

Suddenly, in the middle of a lecture, I fell out of my chair.

Then I started crying. 

"Are you okay, Daisy?" Professor Lupin said, exasperatedly.

"I'm fine, sir," I hiccuped, "I'm just depressed."

He shook his head at me.

Next, I started commentating on everything. 

"Remus crossed to the blackboard and wrote out the definition of what a Hinkypunk is. He has started the lecture again and is walking back to his desk. Oh dear, Remus does not look very happy - he looks angry, in fact..." 

Fred and George found out his first name for me a week ago when they were passing the staff room. They had heard the teachers say it there.

The next lesson, I placed turnips on his desk before class. When he saw them, he sighed and just vanished them.

Then I walked right up to the front of the class, picked up his books, crossed over to the window, and tipped them out. I made my way back to my seat, and smiled at Lupin.

I got another detention. 

Then I pretended to be a Muggle. 

"Sir, what am I doing here? What is this place? Why have you all got wands? Are you wizards?" I gasped.

After that, I pretended to be a Squib. 

"Sir, I'm sorry, I can't do that. I'm a Squib, I can't do magic."

Next lesson, Terry, Draco, Harry, Ron, Dean, Seamus, and I magicked up a crime scene in his office. When he stepped into it to get some books, we heard him sighing like we were giving him grey hairs.

Then I got out my packet of balloons, blew one up, and let it loose. It flew around the classroom, driven by the air inside it leaving it, making strange sounds. I handed a balloon to everyone, and they did the same. By the end of the lesson, Lupin looked like he was going to go jump off a cliff.

"Daisy, tell me the answer." He picked me when I had been whispering to Draco, not paying attention at all.

"Why don't you make me?" I challenged. He sighed again.

After class, the Insurgents and I blew up a balloon and duplicated it hundreds of times. We released them around the school, then put a sign on Lupin's door saying, 'Wild Balloon Rescue Centre - put balloons in here!'

It was so much fun.

~~~

Fred, George, Terry, and I were wandering the corridors, when these three guys from fifth year, along with Floppy, came past. They shoved against us as they passed, smirking. Floppy whispered to them, pointing at me. They disappeared around a corner.

"Will Ash, Greg Spieler, and Tim Rudd." Fred glared after them. 

"They're those douchebags in our year, Slytherin, that we told you's about." George said.

Later, I was hurrying to the kitchens under the Invisibilty Cloak to grab some food. I happily munched on it, chatting with the elves. Then I darted back up to Gryffindor Tower, but I bumped into someone. The Cloak fell off me, and I fell onto the ground. I looked up to see -

* “Look who it is!" One of the guys from earlier smirked, tugging me up.

"Nice find, Will!" Another one said. Will Ash, supposedly, brushed my fringe away with his other hand to see my scar. 

"There's her scar and all, Greg!" Ash grinned.

"Oh I'm more interested in what's about a head beneath that." Greg Spieler said, smiling creepily.

The last guy, probably Tim Rudd, emerged from the shadows. "Guys, let's be sensible. She hasn't even given us a reason to hate her."

"She's the best friend of those damn Weasley twins!" Ash snarled.

"Hmm, I suppose..." Rudd looked unconvinced. 

Floppy emerged from the shadows too. Merlin, was Pratinson going to appear too or something?

"Guys, let me go, d'you suppose?" I tried to tug away from Ash.

"I don't think so." Spieler grinned as Rudd looked uncomfortable. 

Floppy came forward and started to glide his hand along my chest.

"Get the fuck away from me!" I was feeling determined. I flicked the heel of my trainer up, and Ash buckled, yelling out in pain. Good, he deserves it, the git. *

I scarpered, grabbing the Cloak as I went, darting away from Gryffindor Tower as they were blocking the way. 

I ran full force into Suzanne. 

"What are you doing here?" 

"What are YOU doing here?"

"Quick - in here -"

I dragged her into a secret passageway and shut the tapestry closed behind us. I turned to Suzanne, panting. 

"Ash, Spieler, Rudd, and Floppy. Those first three are douchebags from fifth year, enemies of Red and Bushy." I explained. Suzanne nodded in understanding. "Hey, Suzie, when you and Harry get married, we'll be sisters in law!" 

Suzanne grinned, her smile brightening up her entire face. "You'll be my maid of honor!"

"Yes!" I squealed. "And Amy and Shannon will be the bridesmaids and -"

"- My dress will be just like the one I went to the ball in -"

"- The colours should be a soft yellow and white, to honor your house -"

"- We'll get married at a sunny beach -"

"- And Harry's hair would still be messy, no matter how many times he combs it -"

"It'll be fabulous." Suzanne grinned.

"I can't wait! It's going to be perfect!" I cheered.

"And you and Terry will get married!" 

"Oh dear, we'll fight over which colours to use at the wedding I bet - blue or red..."

We babbled on about our weddings and how awesome it would be when we were finally related.

"But what I don't understand, Daze, is that he picked me out of billions of girls on this planet. Why ME? I'm so boring, so dull...there's nothing special about me. And there never will be." Suzanne spoke so dejectedly I nearly cried.

"Suzie." I grabbed her shoulders and looked determinedly into her eyes. "You are amazing, you are exciting, you are fun, and you are a million and one things but BORING and DULL. That's special. He picked you because my brother can see that you are an amazing person. He saw that you may not be perfect, but you are not damn well far off it. Suzanne Wanders, you are wonderful and beautiful. You are one of the best people I've ever met, and I've met literally thousands of people. You are one special girl." I hugged her, her soft golden curls falling over my shoulder. "All you have to do is believe it."

Suddenly, a tiny meow sounded. I pulled back, startled. Suzanne laughed.

"That's just my kitten, sorry." She pulled a tiny stripy kitty out of her robe pocket. "And Daisy - you're still worrying about that Boggart, aren't you?"

It was true. I was.

"Yeah." I said softly.

"Well, don't believe it. Don't give in to your fears." This time she was the one looking into my eyes. "I'm never leaving you. And neither are the others."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, contemplating what each of us said to the other.

"Suzanne?" I said. 

"Yeah?"

"What were you doing up here?"

"Oh." She grinned. "I was pulling a prank - or going to - you bumped into me before I could do it."

"I'll help." And so we both climbed out of the secret passageway and went off, giggling, to do Suzanne's prank.