The next Monday evening, Floppy interrupted our Occlumency session. 

"It's Professor Umbridge, sir - she needs your help." Floppy said. "They've found Ash, sir, he's turned up jammed inside a toilet on the fourth floor." 

"How did he get in there?" Snape demanded.

"I don't know, sir, he's a bit confused." 

I sniggered, and Harry rolled his eyes at me. 

"Very well, very well. Potters," said Snape, "we shall resume this lesson tomorrow evening." 

He turned and swept from his office. Floppy drew his finger across his neck at me behind Snape's back before following him.

I rolled my eyes this time.

"Let's get away from this utter bullshit, Daze." Harry said, making for the door. I followed, getting out my phone. 

"Do you wanna go to the kitchens and get some Pumpkin P-" 

I was at the office door when I saw it: a patch of shivering light dancing on the doorframe. I stopped, and stood looking at it, reminded of something... then I remembered: it was a little like the lights I had seen in my dream last night, the lights in the second room I had walked through on my journey through the Department of Mysteries. I made eye contact with Harry. 

We turned around. The light was coming from the bowl sitting on Snape's desk. The silver-white contents were ebbing and swirling within. Snape's thoughts... things he did not want Harry and I to see if we broke through Snape's defences accidentally...

"What is it that Snape is so keen to hide from us anyway?" I said. 

"Information about the Department of Mysteries?" Harry suggested. 

I looked over my shoulder, my heart now pumping harder and faster than ever. 

"How long will it take Snape to release Ash from the toilet? Is he gonna come straight back here afterwards, or accompany Ash to the hospital wing?" I said. 

"Surely he'll take Ash... he's on the Slytherin team, Snape would want to make sure he was all right. Right?" Harry said anxiously. 

I walked the remaining few feet to the bowl and stood over it, gazing into its depths. I hesitated, listening, then pulled out my wand again. The office and the corridor beyond were completely silent. I gave the contents of the bowl a small prod with the end of my wand.

The silvery stuff within began to swirl very fast. I leaned forwards over it and saw that it had become transparent. I was looking down into a room as though through a circular window in the ceiling... in fact, unless I was much mistaken, I was looking down into the Great Hall.

My breath was actually fogging the surface of Snape's thoughts... my brain seemed to be in limbo... it would be insane to do the thing I was so strongly tempted to do... Snape could be back at any moment... but a reckless daring seized me. 

"C'mon, Harry." I giggled, tugging him beside me. 

We took two great gulps of breath, and plunged our faces into the surface of Snape's thoughts. At once, the floor of the office lurched, tipping us head-first into the bowl...

I was falling through cold blackness, spinning furiously as I went, and then - 

We were standing in the middle of the Great Hall, but the four house tables were gone. Instead, there were more than a hundred smaller tables, all facing the same way, at each of which sat a student, head bent low, scribbling on a roll of parchment. The only sound was the scratching of quills and the occasional rustle as somebody adjusted their parchment. It was clearly exam time.

Sunshine was streaming through the high windows on to the bent heads, which shone chestnut and copper and gold in the bright light. I looked around. Snape had to be here somewhere... this was his memory...

And there he was, at a table right behind me. I stared. Snape-the-teenager had a stringy, pallid look about him, like a plant kept in the dark. His hair was lank and greasy and was flopping on to the table, his hooked nose barely half an inch from the surface of the parchment as he scribbled. I moved around behind Snape and read the heading of the examination paper: DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS - ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL.

So Snape had to be fifteen or sixteen, around my own age. His hand was flying across the parchment; he had written at least a foot more than his closest neighbours, and yet his writing was minuscule and cramped. 

"This is hilarious." I said. 

"That's so weird." Harry said, staring at Snape. "I didn't ever think about him at our age." 

"Five more minutes!" 

The voice made me jump. Turning, I saw the top of Professor Flitwick's head moving between the desks a short distance away. Professor Flitwick was walking past a boy with untidy black hair... VERY untidy black hair... 

I moved so quickly that, had I been solid, I would have knocked desks flying. Instead I seemed to slide, dreamlike, across two aisles and up a third. The back of the black-haired boy's head drew nearer and... he was straightening up now, putting down his quill, pulling his roll of parchment towards him so as to reread what he had written...

I stopped in front of the desk and gazed down at my fifteen-year-old father.

"Harry!" I said excitedly as he joined me. "Look, it's Dad!" 

Excitement exploded in the pit of my stomach: it was as though I was looking at a male version of myself - or at Harry - but with deliberate mistakes. James's eyes were hazel, his nose was slightly longer than mine and there was no scar on his forehead, but we had the same face, same mouth, same eyebrows; James's hair stuck up at the back exactly as mine and Harry's did, his hands could have been Harry's, and I could tell that, when James stood up, the boys would be within an inch of each other in height.

James yawned hugely and rumpled up his hair, making it even messier than it had been. Then, with a glance towards Professor Flitwick, he turned in his seat and grinned at a boy sitting four seats behind him.

With another shock of excitement, I saw Sirius give James the thumbs-up. 

"Harrrrrry!" I said, my hands in my hair in awe. 

Sirius was lounging in his chair at his ease, tilting it back on two legs. He was very good-looking; his dark hair fell into his eyes with a sort of casual elegance neither James's nor Harry's could ever have achieved, and a girl sitting behind him was eyeing him hopefully, though he didn't seem to have noticed. And two seats along from this girl - my stomach gave another pleasurable squirm - was Remus Lupin. He looked rather pale and peaky - 

"Was the full moon approaching?" Harry asked. 

- And was absorbed in the exam: as he reread his answers, he scratched his chin with the end of his quill, frowning slightly. I grinned widely as I saw Emily, her hair hanging long past her chair, glancing over at Sirius and James and sending them an 'ok' sign with her hand. 

So that meant Wormtail had to be around here somewhere, too... and sure enough, I spotted him within seconds: a small, mousy-haired boy with a pointed nose. Wormtail looked anxious; he was chewing his fingernails, staring down at his paper, scuffing the ground with his toes. Every now and then he glanced hopefully at his neighbour's paper. I stared at Wormtail for a moment, then back at James, who was now doodling on a bit of scrap parchment. He had drawn a Snitch and was now tracing the letters 'L.E.'. What did they stand for?

"Quills down, please!" Professor Flitwick squeaked. "That means you too, Stebbins! Please remain seated while I collect your parchment! Accio!" 

Over a hundred rolls of parchment zoomed into the air and into Professor Flitwick's outstretched arms, knocking him backwards off his feet. Several people laughed. A couple of students at the front desks got up, took hold of Professor Flitwick beneath the elbows and lifted him back on to his feet.

"Thank you... thank you." Professor Flitwick panted. "Very well, everybody, you're free to go!" 

Harry and I looked down at our father, who had hastily crossed out the 'L.E.' he had been embellishing, jumped to his feet, stuffed his quill and the exam paper into his bag, which he slung over his back, and stood waiting for Sirius to join him.

A gang of chattering girls separated Snape from James, Sirius, Emily, and Lupin, and by planting ourselves in their midst, Harry and I managed to keep Snape in sight while straining our ears to catch the voices of James and his friends.

"Did you like question ten, Moony?" Sirius asked as we emerged into the Entrance Hall.

"Loved it." Lupin said briskly. "Give five signs that identify the werewolf. Excellent question." 

"D'you think you managed to get all the signs?" James said in tones of mock concern.

"Think I did." Lupin said seriously, as we joined the crowd thronging around the front doors eager to get out into the sunlit grounds. "One: he's sitting on my chair. Two: he's wearing my clothes. Three: his name's Remus Lupin." 

Wormtail and Harry were the only ones who didn't laugh; I sniggered along with them as Harry sighed.

"I got the snout shape, the pupils of the eyes, and the tufted tail." Wormtail said anxiously. "But I couldn't think what else -" 

"How thick are you, Wormtail?" James said impatiently. "You run round with a werewolf once a month -" 

"Keep your voice down." Lupin implored.

"Well, I thought that paper was a piece of cake." I heard Emily say. 

"I'll be surprised if I don't get 'Outstanding' on it at least." Sirius said. 

"Me too." James said. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a struggling Golden Snitch.

"Where'd you get that?" 

"Nicked it." James said casually. He started playing with the Snitch, allowing it to fly as much as a foot away before seizing it again; his reflexes were excellent. Wormtail watched him in awe.

"Our dad was a wee thief, it seems." I told Harry, who shrugged, his eyes glued to our dad. 

They stopped in the shade of the very same beech tree on the edge of the lake where I had my first kiss with Terry, and threw themselves down on the grass. I looked over my shoulder again and saw that Snape had settled himself on the grass in the dense shadow of a clump of bushes. He was as deeply immersed in the OWL paper as ever, which left Harry and I free to sit down on the grass between the beech and the bushes and watch the group under the tree. The sunlight was dazzling on the smooth surface of the lake, on the bank of which the group of laughing girls who had just left the Great Hall were sitting, with their shoes and socks off, cooling their feet in the water.

Lupin had pulled out a book and was reading. Sirius stared around at the students milling over the grass, looking rather haughty and bored, but very handsomely so. Emily was doodling on a piece of parchment, and James was still playing with the Snitch, letting it zoom further and further away, almost escaping but always grabbed at the last second. Wormtail was watching him with his mouth open. Every time James made a particularly difficult catch, Wormtail gasped and applauded. James seemed to be enjoying the attention. I noticed that my father had a habit of rumpling up his hair as though to keep it from getting too tidy, and he also kept looking over at the girls by the water's edge.

"Put that away, will you?" Sirius said finally, as James made a fine catch and Wormtail let out a cheer. "Before Wormtail wets himself with excitement." 

Wormtail turned slightly pink, but James grinned.

"If it bothers you." He said, stuffing the Snitch back in his pocket. 

"Sirius was probably the only one for whom he would have stopped showing off." Harry said, and I nodded, sniggering.  

"I'm bored." Sirius said. "Wish it was full moon." 

"YOU might." Lupin said darkly from behind his book. "We've still got Transfiguration, if you're bored you could test me. Here..." And he held out his book.

But Sirius snorted. "I don't need to look at that rubbish, I know it all."

"This'll liven you up, Padfoot." James said quietly. "Look who it is." Sirius's head turned. He became very still, like a dog that has scented a rabbit.

"Excellent." He said softly. "Snivellus." 

Harry turned to see what Sirius was looking at, though I already knew.

Snape was on his feet again, and was stowing the OWL paper in his bag. As he left the shadows of the bushes and set off across the grass, Sirius and James stood up.

Emily, Lupin, and Wormtail remained sitting: Emily was rolling her eyes; Lupin was still staring down at his book, though his eyes were not moving and a faint frown line had appeared between his eyebrows; Wormtail was looking from Sirius and James to Snape with a look of avid anticipation on his face.

"All right, Snivellus?" James said loudly.

Snape reacted so fast it was as though he had been expecting an attack: dropping his bag, he plunged his hand inside his robes and his wand was halfway into the air when James shouted, "Expelliarmus!" 

Snape's wand flew twelve feet into the air and fell with a little thud in the grass behind him. Sirius let out a bark of laughter.

"Impedimenta!" He said, pointing his wand at Snape, who was knocked off his feet halfway through a dive towards his own fallen wand.

Students all around had turned to watch. Some of them had got to their feet and were edging nearer. Some looked apprehensive, others entertained.

Snape lay panting on the ground. James and Sirius advanced on him, wands raised, James glancing over his shoulder at the girls at the water's edge as he went. Wormtail was on his feet now, watching hungrily, edging around Lupin and Emily to get a clearer view.

"How'd the exam go, Snivelly?" James said.

"I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment." Sirius said viciously. "There'll be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word." 

Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular. Wormtail sniggered shrilly. Snape was trying to get up, but the jinx was still operating on him; he was struggling, as though bound by invisible ropes.

"You - wait." He panted, staring up at James with an expression of purest loathing. "You - wait!" 

"Wait for what?" Sirius said coolly. "What're you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?" 

Snape let out a stream of mixed swear words and hexes, but with his wand ten feet away nothing happened.

"Wash out your mouth." James said coldly. "Scourgify!" 

Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape's mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him - 

"Leave him ALONE!" 

James and Sirius looked round. James's free hand immediately jumped to his hair.

It was one of the girls from the lake edge. She had thick, dark red hair that fell to her shoulders, and startlingly green almond-shaped eyes - our eyes.

Our mother. 

I spun around to Harry, who was gawking back at me. 

"All right, Evans?" James said, and the tone of his voice was suddenly pleasant, deeper, more mature.

"Leave him alone." Lily repeated. She was looking at James with every sign of great dislike. "What's he done to you?" 

"Well." James said, appearing to deliberate the point. "It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean..." 

Many of the surrounding students laughed, Sirius, Emily, and Wormtail included, but Lupin, still apparently intent on his book, didn't, and nor did Lily. 

"It appears that Dad's a bit of a bullying dickhead..." I muttered to Harry, disconcerted. 

"You think you're funny." Lily said coldly. "But you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone." 

"I will if you go out with me, Evans." James said quickly. "Go on... go out with me and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again." 

Behind him, the Impediment Jinx was wearing off. Snape was beginning to inch towards his fallen wand, spitting out soapsuds as he crawled.

"I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid." Lily said.

"Bad luck, Prongs." Sirius said briskly, and turned back to Snape. "OI!" 

But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James's face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about: a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside-down in the air, his trousers whipped off to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of greying underpants.

Many people in the small crowd cheered; Sirius, James, Emily, and Wormtail roared with laughter.

Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile, said, "Let him down!"

"Certainly." James said, and he jerked his wand upwards; Snape fell into a crumpled heap on the ground. Disentangling himself from his robes he got quickly to his feet, wand up, but Sirius said, "Petrificus Totalus!" and Snape keeled over again, rigid as a board.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.

"Ah, Evans, don't make me hex you." James said earnestly.

"Take the curse off him, then!" 

James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the counter-curse.

"There you go." He said, as Snape struggled to his feet. "You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus -" 

"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" 

Lily blinked as I said, "I take it back, Dad has every right to bully him." 

"Fine." Lily said coolly. "I won't bother in future. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus." 

"Apologise to Evans!" James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

"I don't want you to make him apologise." Lily shouted, rounding on James. "You're as bad as he is." 

"What?" James yelped. "I'd NEVER call you a - you-know-what!" 

"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can - I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK." 

She turned on her heel and hurried away.

"Evans!" James shouted after her. "Hey, EVANS!" 

But she didn't look back.

"What is it with her?" James said, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him.

"Reading between the lines, I'd say she thinks you're a bit conceited, mate." Sirius said.

"Right." James said, who looked furious now. "Right -" 

There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside-down in the air.

"Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?" 

But whether James really did take off Snape's pants, we never found out. A hand had closed tight over my upper arm, closed with a pincer-like grip. Wincing, I looked round to see who had hold of me, and saw, with a thrill of horror, a fully grown, adult-sized Snape standing right beside Harry and I, white with rage.

"Having fun?" 

I felt myself rising into the air; the summer's day evaporated around me; I was floating upwards through icy blackness, Snape's hand still tight upon my upper arm. Then, with a swooping feeling as though I had turned head-over-heels in midair, my feet hit the stone floor of Snape's dungeon and I was standing again beside the bowl on Snape's desk in the shadowy, present-day Potion master's study.

"So." Snape said, and I saw he was gripping Harry's arm too. "So... been enjoying yourself, Potters?" 

"N-no." Harry said, trying to free his arm.

It was scary: Snape's lips were shaking, his face was white, his teeth were bared. I wrenched free of him and backed away. 

"Amusing man, your father, wasn't he?" Snape said, shaking Harry so hard his glasses slipped down his nose.

"Let him go, idiot!" I said. 

Snape threw Harry from him with all his might. I caught my brother before he fell onto the dungeon floor. 

"You will not repeat what you saw to anybody!" Snape bellowed.

"As long as you don't say the word 'Mudblood' to anybody ever again." I said coolly, as Harry said, "No, I won't -" 

"Get out, get out, I don't want to see either of you in this office ever again!" 

We wrenched the door open and ran along the corridor, stopping only when we had put three floors between ourselves and Snape. There we both leaned against the wall, panting, and I rubbed my bruised arm. 

"What the fuck?" I said, and Harry shook his head. 

"We need to talk to Sirius." I said firmly, and Harry nodded his head this time. "I mean, I completely agree with bullying someone who uses the word 'Mudblood...' but I feel like he came off like a bully." 

"Yeah." Harry panted. "Yeah... we need to clarify some things..." 

And so I took Harry up to the seventh year boys' dorm and took out the mirror from my bedside table. 

We both positioned ourselves in front of the mirror and waited. Suddenly, the mirror cleared, only for us to find that we were looking up from a wooden table where a man sat poring over a piece of parchment.

"Sirius?" I said. 

The man jumped and looked around. It was not Sirius, but Lupin.

"Daisy! Harry!" He said. "Nice to see you two again. How've you been?" 

"Okay, I guess." I said. "We just fancied a chat with Sirius." 

"I'll call him." Lupin said, getting to his feet. "He went upstairs to look for Kreacher, he seems to be hiding in the attic again..." 

And we saw Lupin hurry out of the kitchen, returning with Sirius and Emily at his heels moments later.

"Found Emily too, so we brought her along, hope you don't mind." Lupin said, and I beamed at her as she winked at me. 

"What is it?" Sirius said, sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes and grabbing the mirror from the table, holding it at eye level with himself and the other two. "Are you all right? Do you need help?" 

"Nah, it's nothing like that." I said. "We just wanted to talk about our dad." 

They all exchanged a look of great surprise, and I plunged immediately into the story of what we had seen in the bowl in Snape's office.

When I had finished, none of them spoke for a moment. Then Lupin said quietly, "I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, twins. He was only fifteen -" 

"We're fifteen." Harry said heatedly.

"Look, Harry." Sirius said placatingly. "James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other." 

"It was just one of those things, you can understand that, can't you?" Emily said, and I nodded, thinking of Floppy. 

"I think James was everything Snape wanted to be - he was popular, he was good at Quidditch - good at pretty much everything." Sirius said. 

"And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts." Emily said. 

"And James - whatever else he may have appeared to you, Daisy, Harry - always hated the Dark Arts." Sirius finished. 

"Yeah," said Harry, "but he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because - well, just because you said you were bored." He finished, with a slightly apologetic note in his voice.

"I'm not proud of it." Sirius said quickly.

Lupin looked sideways at Sirius, then said, "Look, Harry, what you've got to understand is that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did - everyone thought they were the height of cool - if they sometimes got a bit carried away -" 

"If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean." Sirius said.

Lupin smiled as Emily laughed.

"He kept messing up his hair." Harry said in a pained voice.

Sirius, Emily, and Lupin laughed.

"I'd forgotten he used to do that." Sirius said affectionately.

"Was he playing with the Snitch?" Lupin said eagerly.

"Yeah." I said, grinning. Sirius, Emily, and Lupin beamed reminiscently. 

"Well... I thought he was a bit of an idiot." Harry said sadly. 

"Of course he was a bit of an idiot!" Sirius said bracingly. "We were all idiots! Well - not Moony so much." He said fairly, looking at Lupin.

But Lupin shook his head. "Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?" He said. "Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?" 

"Yeah, well." Sirius said. "You made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes... that was something..." 

"And he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!" I grinned. 

"Oh, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around." Emily said, shrugging. "He couldn't stop himself showing off whenever he got near her." 

"How come she married him?" Harry asked miserably. "She hated him!" 

"Nah, she didn't." Emily said.

"She started going out with him in seventh year." Lupin said.

"Once James had deflated his head a bit." Sirius said.

"And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it." Lupin said.

"Aw, why? It's really fun." I said. 

"Even Snape?" Harry said.

"Well," said Lupin slowly, "Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?" 

"And our mum was OK with that?" 

"She didn't know too much about it, to tell you the truth." Sirius said. "I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?" 

Sirius frowned at Harry, who was still looking unconvinced.

"Look," he said, "your father was the best friend I ever had and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it." 

"I told you, Harry." I said. 

"Yeah, OK." Harry said heavily. "I just never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape." 

"Now you mention it," said Lupin, a faint crease between his eyebrows, "how did Snape react when he found you'd seen all this?" 

"He told us he'd never teach us Occlumency again," I said indifferently, "like I'd care -" 

"He WHAT?" Sirius shouted, causing Harry to jump violently beside me. 

"Are you serious, Daisy?" Emily said quickly. "He's stopped giving you lessons?" 

"Yeah." I said, surprised at the over-reaction. "But it's aight, I don't even care, less time to spend with the twat -" 

"I'm coming up there to have a word with Snape!" Sirius said forcefully, and he actually made to stand up, but Lupin wrenched him back down again.

"If anyone's going to tell Snape it will be me!" He said firmly. "But Daisy, Harry, first of all, you're to go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons - when Dumbledore hears -" 

"Dude, we can't tell him that, he'd kill us!" I said.

"Daisy, there is nothing so important as you learning Occlumency!" Lupin said sternly. "Do you understand me? Nothing!" 

Harry and I sighed as the adults exchanged another glance. I had absolutely no intention of telling Snape that he was to continue teaching me... 

~~~

Meanwhile, the Amazingly Intensely Epically Huge Major Prank War was going strong. Somebody managed to slip a hairy-snouted Niffler into Umbridge's office, which promptly tore the place apart in its search for shiny objects, leapt on Umbridge when she entered, and tried to gnaw the rings off her stubby fingers. Dungbombs and Stink Pellets were dropped so frequently in the corridors that it became the new fashion for students to perform Bubble-Head Charms on ourselves before leaving lessons, which ensured us a supply of fresh air, even though it gave us all the peculiar appearance of wearing upside-down goldfish bowls on our heads.

Filch prowled the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands, desperate to catch miscreants, but the problem was that there were now so many of us he never knew which way to turn. The Inquisitorial Squad was attempting to help him, but odd things kept happening to its members. Warrington of the Slytherin Quidditch team reported to the hospital wing with a horrible skin complaint that made him look as though he had been coated in cornflakes; Theodore Nott missed all his lessons the following day as he had sprouted antlers.

Meanwhile, it became clear just how many Skiving Snackboxes we had managed to sell. Umbridge only had to enter her classroom for the students assembled there to faint, vomit, develop dangerous fevers or else spout blood from both nostrils. Shrieking with rage and frustration, she attempted to trace the mysterious symptoms to their source, but the students told her stubbornly we were suffering from 'Umbridge-itis.' After putting four successive classes in detention and failing to discover our secret, she was forced to give up and allow the bleeding, swooning, sweating, and vomiting students to leave her classes in droves.

But not even the users of the Snackboxes could compete with that master of chaos, Peeves. Cackling madly, he soared through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, toppling statues and vases; twice he shut Mrs Norris inside a suit of armour, from which she was rescued, yowling loudly, by the furious caretaker. Peeves smashed lanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over the heads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or out of windows; flooded the second floor when he pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms, dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever he fancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after Umbridge and blowing loud raspberries every time she spoke.

None of the staff but Filch seemed to be stirring themselves to help her. Indeed, a week after the AIEHMPW started, I witnessed Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and could have sworn I heard her tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth, "It unscrews the other way." 

To cap matters, Ash had still not recovered from his sojourn in the toilet; he remained confused and disorientated and his parents were to be observed one Tuesday morning striding up the front drive, looking extremely angry.

"Should we say something?" Hermione said in a worried voice, pressing her cheek against the Charms window so that she could see Mr and Mrs Ash marching inside. "About what happened to him? In case it helps Madam Pomfrey cure him?" 

"'Course not, he'll recover." Terry said indifferently.

"Anyway, more trouble for Umbridge, isn't it?" Harry said in a satisfied voice.

Me and Ron both tapped the teacups we were supposed to be charming with our wands. Mine sprouted four very short legs that could not reach the desk and wriggled pointlessly in midair. Ron's grew four very thin spindly legs that hoisted the cup off the desk with great difficulty, trembled for a few seconds, then folded, causing the cup to crack into two.

"Reparo." Hermione said quickly, mending Ron's cup with a wave of her wand. "That's all very well, but what if Ash is permanently injured?" 

"Who cares?" I said irritably. "Ash shouldn't have tried to take all those points from Gryffindor, should he?" 

"Plus, he's a rapist." Terry muttered under his breath savagely. 

And as the term progressed, Kylie was also taking me on more and more dates. She was sneaking me out to Hogsmeade regularly, buying me whatever I wanted from any shop, making her bodyguard Apparate us to nearby cities, taking me to the most high-end, expensive restaurants. 

"I can see myself marrying you, Daisy Potter." Kylie said smoothly as we finished off our two-hundred-Galleon desserts under a mood-lighting chandelier, the harp playing softly in the background. 

I blushed. And my face got even hotter as she leant forward and swiped her thumb against my bottom lip, wiping off a tiny bit of cream. 

And the way she was looking at me... her eyebrows relaxed, her small smirk playing on her lips, her twinkling eyes... 

I think I'm falling in love.