"ALRIGHT, IS SHE REALLY THAT angelic or is she just messing with us at this point?"

The Weasley twins squinted at Nikita who sat across from them. She giggled innocently as horrid pink love hearts fell into her hair. It was, of course, the work of Gilderoy Lockharts Valentine's day decorating.

Parvati Patil had already thrown up and Lavender kept shooting hopeful looks at Seamus Finnigan and the 'cupids' (who, in fact, were actually grumpy dwarves).

"Freddie, I spent the majority of last year around that girl, and she's pure platnium I'm telling you."

Fred tapped his fingers on the table, watching the girl before him. "Hey Nik, how old are you?"

She peered down at her lesson chart. "February... oh, I'm thirteen!"

George choked on his drink. "What? When did you turn thirteen?"

"January twenty first," She replied promptly. "Can you pass the pomegranates? Heka like's them,"

Fred handed over the bowl, "So you know what sex is, right?"

Nikita paused, internally checking her vocabulary for the word. It sounded some-what familiar, but she couldn't quite pin it's meaning. She'd gotten quite better at slang over the two years of schooling, so it was confidence-knocking when she couldn't figure out what it meant.

She shook her head mournfully, "No, but I could get my dictionary if you'd like?"

The boy's shared mortified looks. "N-no, it's okay now, I remember."

"What does it mean?" Nik asked, looking so sincerely interested the boy's lost all colour in their face.

"Freddie..." George murmured under his breath, "Freddie, we have a duty to this girl,"

"Oh sweet Merlin."

***

Lavender, Nik, Parvati and Hermione walked down the spiral stair case from charms class. Ron and Harry trailed behind them, intimidated by the group of giggling females who could probaly slit their throats and do their nails at the same time.

"These dwarves are ridiculous," Parvati huffed, "It's so degrading having a middle aged man come up to you, half naked, singing toddlers rythmes."

Lavender rolled her eye's, a dreamy smile on her face. Hermione let out a small hum of agreement. She had been distracted throughout the majority of the school year, and always smelled like a potion gone wrong.

Nik didn't like the silence that followed, it felt unfinished, and she had an overwhelming urge to fill it.

"The twins told me about sex," She blurted out.

Parvati spun around and slapped Nikita- "Sorry, instinct, I have three little brothers. Wait- Fred and George-?"

"Nik!" Lavender hissed, "You aren't supposed to say that word!"

"Why not?"

"It's- it's bad-"

"It's natural," Nikita corrected, remembering what they told her. "It's basic human instinct. There's nothing wrong with it, it isn't a sin or anything,"

"To some people, it is," Hermione informed her.

"They sound horrible, why would they shame people for enjoying themselves?"

Lavender bursted into a fit of giggles and Parvati hid her face in her hands. Hermione only sighed. "It's hard to explain, but the twins probaly only told you the- the- the basics."

Nikita frowned, "If you say so."

"I do. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

"What work?" Parvati asked, "That was our last class."

"Never mind that- look how dreamy Seamus is with his hair ruffled!"

Parvati groaned. "Good god woman, get a grip!"

"On him," She giggled.

"My dreams are about broccoli horses and scary stuff, what's so broccoli about him?" Nik wondered aloud.

Parvati covered her ears, "You don't wanna know,"

"What about Ron?" Lavender asked her, "I hear he like like's you, Nik, do you think he's cute?"

Nikita looked over her shoulder at the two boy's. In her books, Heka was cute. And Ron didn't look anything like her baby bat.

"Nope," She said easily.

"Not even a little?" Parvati asked, seeming surprised.

"Cute is brown eye's and ashy blonde hair, Ron doesn't have any of that."

Lavender snickered, "Friend zone for him then."

***

Nikita hunched over the letter she was writing. It was to Sirius, it was her way of voicing and unloading the concerns and nightmares that bounced around in her brain.

Don't get me wrong, Nik adored her friends. And her best friends. They were so incredibly kind and helpful with Nik's confusion about the world around her, but, unfortunately, that was only one half of the coin.

Nightmares about Azkaban refused to leave her alone. Screams- corpses- crashing water- Nik squeezed her eye's shut.

Sensing his owners discomfort, Heka left behind his half eaten fruit and climbed on her back. She absent mindedly stroked his wings. "Bottles on the wall, knock em down, knock em down," She sang softly.

Nikita also had th is feeling in her chest. This odd, suffocating feeling like something was squeezing her organs together. She tried to read up on it, but all she got was Depression amd Anxiety.

Was Nik depressed? She didn't think so. Sure, she didn't eat as much as she probaly should, but that was Depression. That was just her body struggling to accept so much food in one day when she was only used to a sandwich a day.

"Nik!"

She quickly hid her letter as Harry Potter came jogging towards her. That was odd. He didn't talk to her. He was always around Hermione.

"Hi!" She greeted as brightly as she could.

"Hi, listen, uh- Hermione said... you know a lot about the dark arts, right?"

She nodded. "It's my smarts area."

He sat dowm beside her and lowered his voice, "I don't suppose you know about anything that could... I don't know... make someone hear voices? Petrify people?"

"Are you trying to figure out the attacks?" Nikita tilted her head to the side. "That's an awfully stupid thing to do, you're twelve, and you're failing potions, what are you gonna do, throw your glasses at the invisible, ancient creature taking down Hogwarts students?"

Harry blinked. "W-well-"

"That's a horrible idea. They're made of glass. Unless you're hoping a shard will get stuck in it's eye and blind the thing, in which case you'd need good aim. Oh! Yeah, their are several spells that can make you hear things, unfortunately I don't know much about creatures."

"R-right." Harry stuttered. Wow she was blunt.

His eye's fell on the letter she was writing. "Who's that for?"

"My dad." Nik lied. Well, was it a lie? "I send them to his resting place,"

To poor old, normal thinking Harry, it sounded like Nikita had just told him she writes letters to her father's grave.

"Oh. Sorry. Er- do you play Quidditch?"

"No, I enjoy the idea of it but I'm completely baffled by the real thing," She tilted her head to the side. "I'd like to like it, but I don't."

Heka let out an agreeing chirp.

"It scares him," She informed Harry.

"Oh. I guess it would. You're really- um, different, you know that? You kinda scare me,"

"I do? Why?"

"I dunno. You're just-... you don't really get human interaction do you?"

She shook her head mournfully. "I try, but it's really hard. People are nice, but I'm not used to nice people, or people in general, but I do try, I swear."

Harry nodded awkwardly. He wouldn't exactly say he was in the same boat, but he could see where she was coming from. Living with the Dursleys he was practically a slave, but coming into the wizarding world, people regarded him as royalty.

And while he didn't know Nikita all that well, her struggle to understand basic things about the world and her shady past that she didn't acknowledge was certainly something he understood.

He was learning something new about the wizarding world every day, and the more he aged, the more he realised his upbringing was far from normal.

"What do you think your parents would say if they could see you now?" Nikita wondered aloud. "I mean, I don't know my parent's, but I know my mum wasn't exactly a good person, and my dad must have been really desperate to get away from her to leave me behind. So I don't think they'd be very proud of me, but what do you think?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know, I never knew them."

"Well, let's look at the facts," Nikita said. "They got married young, considering they had the same last name and only went to school in the seventies. They were both Gryffindors, right? So they were both brave and bold. Taking this into account, they must have been really in love. They didn't even abort you, despite being ninteen (or twenty) when your mum got pregnant. They must have really loved you. I think they'd be proud. I mean, you're twelve and you've defeated baldoldwort twice."

Harry had been incredibly touched until her last sentence. "Baldoldwart?" He repeated incredulously.

She nodded, "Oh yeah, I don't like his actual name. It sounds french. Baldoldwart is much more accurate."

"Potter! Vane! There you are,"

They looked over their shoulders as Ms Minnerva came hurrying over.

"What's going on?" Nik asked in confusion as the woman pulled them up.

"Another student's been petrified- and I'm afraid it's Ms Granger."

***

A/N

GUESS WHO'S SIXTEEN BITCHES.
ME. HAH. I BETTER GET A HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM Y'ALL - I DON'T CARE HOW LATE YOU'RE READING THIS.

Q: Goosebumps?