Anika found herself growing more and more annoyed with the antics of James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin. The four boys seemed to have made it their mission to cause as much trouble as humanly possible. But she was able to ignore them due to the wide berth that they gave Mary because every time they tried speaking to her she would make a high pitched shrieking noise which annoyed them all enough to leave her alone. 

She found herself beyond thankful for Mary's friendship, as Mary made people like her without even trying, therefore drawing the friendship of most of their year group, which Anika benefitted from. This meant that Anika always had someone to sit beside in class and always was able to find someone to talk to at breaktimes.

School was fascinating to her and she seemed to excel especially in Potions and Astronomy, which she greatly enjoyed. She had settled in excellently at Hogwarts, writing letters regularly to Mr Borgin and Mr Burke to update them about her studies. Things were going perfectly until one Wednesday morning in early November when Anika's world was turned on its head.

The morning had started, as usual, Mary woke Anika up and they ate breakfast with Donna and Marlene before heading to the Training Grounds for Flying Lessons. They were all beginning to get relatively good, and Anika had just mastered a loop the loop, of which she was very proud. 

Madam Hooch set the group a course to fly around, with some optional more difficult sections for those who were better at flying like Marlene and James. Sirius Black and James Potter made fun of Severus Snape (as usual) for his wobbly flying and Marlene threatened to shove James off of his broom if he didn't stop showing off. Peter Pettigrew was marvelling at James' flying prowess, whilst Remus Lupin was mysteriously absent as he sometimes was. 

Anika was just about to attempt a loop the loop, when a force knocked her off of her broom and she fell the 8 feet to the floor, hitting the ground hard. The force of the fall knocked the wind out of her for a moment, and she was unable to register the pain until Madam Hooch had her sit up and Anika realised that her head was pounding. She put her hand to the spot on the back of her head that seemed to hurt the most and it came away sticky with a golden substance which smelled oddly metallic.

Though her head was groggy, she knew that this was not the colour that it should be, as blood should be red, not gold. She began to drift in and out of consciousness, vaguely registering concerned voices and a lot of movement. She heard snippets of conversation.

There was a sharp blast on a whistle, "class dismissed!" yelled Madam Hooch, "Mr Black, would you kindly escort Mr Pettigrew to the hospital wing, I will take Miss Smith-" Anika drifted into blackness.

"Professor can I come?" asked Mary.

"No," answered Madam Hooch curtly.

Blackness overtook her again.

"What is it Poppy?" a man's voice asked.

"It seems to be blood, or blood is the closest thing to it anyway," replied a woman.

The blackness did not absorb her this time as she suspected, but she kept her eyes closed tightly, not ready to embrace consciousness.

"She should be awake any moment now," said the same woman, "the blow wasn't too hard, nothing that a simple charm couldn't fix, and her arm was even simpler. She could have been much worse."

"It was an accident!" Anika recognised the voice of Peter Pettigrew, "I didn't mean to hit her, I just didn't see her!"

"Not to worry my dear boy, there's no need crying over split pumpkin juice," said the same man who had spoken earlier, "though you will be serving detention with Madam Hooch tomorrow evening."

Anika opened her eyes, curious to see who the mystery man and woman were. On opening her eyes she saw that Professor Dumbledore was on one side of her bed, with Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, on the other side. Anika groaned and pressed her hands to her eyes in an attempt to block out the light.

"Good, you're awake!" Said Madam Pomfrey, "drink this please." Anika took a steaming cup from the woman and drank. The liquid was not nice, but it wasn't disgusting either, so Anika drained the whole cup. Her head began to clear and she was able to make a bit more sense of what had happened and where she was. She was in a bed in the hospital wing. Peter Pettigrew sat in a bed to her right, looking rather guilty. There were some curtains drawn around a bed at one end of the hospital wing, which offered whoever was in the bed some privacy.

"Feel better Smith?" Madam Pomfrey asked. 

"Much thankyou." Anika handed the now empty cup back to the matron, who bustled off down the ward. 

"I'm so sorry Anika," Peter immediately launched into an apology, "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"Maybe attempt to pay more attention next time?" Anika suggested, "but don't worry about it I'm fine."

"Mr Pettigrew you may return to class," said Dumbledore, who had not taken his eyes off of Anika. His gaze made her uncomfortable, not least because this was the gaze that he often fixed upon her in the Great Hall. It was one of curiosity, but now it was mixed with amusement. Peter did as he was told and scurried out of the hospital wing, shooting Anika a furtive glance. 

"Miss Smith I would like to ask you some questions if that is okay," said Dumbledore. Anika nodded numbly. "Can you tell me what colour your blood is? Think back and tell me what colour it was when you last scraped your knee."

"I've never scraped my knee," answered Anika after some thought, "I don't remember ever seeing my blood, but blood is red, so I would assume that my blood is red."

"That would be where you are wrong Miss Smith," said Dumbledore, "this is your blood," he held up a small vial of golden liquid, "and as you can see it is far from red."