Rose chuckled. 'She's probably nicer than us...' she said. Well, she WAS a Hufflepuff! Rose guessed that they were just really nice! How would she know? She was a lion! RAWR!

" Hey, Lilly. How've you been?" Justin said as he smiled at her.

" Well if she's your sister I'm sure she's lovely. " Justin said. " Gee, Maybe I should bare my teeth like a Badger and defend myself. " Justin joked.

Rose nodded. 'Yeah, when she's not being completely annoying!' she said, sticking her tongue out at Lilly. 'Maybe you should...' Rose smirked. She was alion. Stalking through the jungle. RAWR!

Justin busted out laughing. " your ridiculous, Rose! " and Justin continued to laugh as he hit Rose in the shoulder playfully.

Rose grinned. 'That's what I was aiming for!' she beamed. She loved making people laugh. It was an amazing thing to do! Then he hit her. Yes, playfully, but she was a lion. 'YOU DON'T MESS WITH A LION!' Rose announced, pouncing about the place, going a TEENSY bit hyper...

" Bloody Hell, Rose! " Justin said as he got up from the ground dusting off the dirt from his robes . " I was only foolin' with ya." And with that Justin decided to really get Rose going. He took out his wand and said as he pointed it at Rose's head, " Felintas." When he opened his eyes he couldn't keep from laughing. Rose's hair was maybe a few inches long. " Well, don't you look pretty? " joked Justin. Actually , he was a bit afraid of what she was going to do to him. To be honest he hadn't thought that through before shortening her hair.

Rose glared at him. And I mean, glared. If looks could kill. She screamed really loudly. She pounced at him, wrestling him to the floor. 'PUT IT BACK!' she yelled. He was ONE step away from being hexed into oblivion. She wanted her hair back. Then she'd leave. She prided on having her hair waist length and he had cut it. 'PUT IT BACK!' she yelled again, just for effect. She was not to be messed with... Not her. Rose didn't take things standing down. She would fight to the death if neccesary. She wanted her hair back. She wasn't actually hurting him. She was just rolling him around. Like she did with Violet and Lilly. But they didn't cut her hair.

" Easy , Rose! " Justin pleaded. " I was only playing around! " He pointed his wand at her hair and said clearly, " Intaris! " Rose's hair returned to normal. " Get off! " Pleaded Justin as she shoved him in the dirt again. " Good, Godric! Don't you know how to take a joke?! i wouldn't have left it like that. I was just doing a bit of practice and you got in my way. " Justin joked as he dusted himself off again. " forgive me? " Justin said as he pouted playfully.

Rose felt the anger in her blood boil. She didn't forgive that easily, hell no, he'd have to beg and plead. 'YOU CUT MY HAIR!' She yelled. She was angry. Hell, understatement, she was fuming! 'No. Not forgiving!' Rose frowned. She was not a happy bunny.

" Oh , come on , Rose. Don't be mad. I was just playing around. " Justin pleaded.

Rose pouted. 'You killed my hair!' Rose smirked. She wasn't mad anymore. In fact. She pulled out her spork. She always carried around a spork. In case of incidents like this. She poked him. She kept poking him. POKE POKE POKE POKE POKE!

" Ow! Rose! Knock it off!" cried Justin as
Rose continued poking him. " That's it I'm gonna tickle you if you don't quit it! "

She giggled and continued to poke him. 'I'M NOT TICKLISH!' she told him.

" Oh, I bet you are! " said Justin as he enveloped Rose and draped his arms around her trying to tickle her.

Rose stood completely still as he tickled her. She shrugged. 'I can control my ticklishness...' she explained. Then she tickled him. 'HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!' she giggled madly, tickling him.

" Hey, knock it off!!! " Justin said as he laughed uncontrollably. " You're gonna get! " justin said as he began to chase her.

'EEP!' Rose shrieked as he chased her. Yet she was a lot faster than him, obviously. She smirked and ran behind him, tickling him again.

Justin tried to outrun her , but there was no use. She was much too fast for him. " Alright , alright . I give up. You win. " Justin said out of breath. Do you want to meet Amethyst? I've got to go meet her in the great hall in a few minutes. " he asked.

Rose whooped and stuck her tongue out at him. 'I know! I always win!' she chuckled. 'Yeah, sure!' Rose said. She'd meet her! She had to give her the 'big sister talk'!

" Did I say the great hall? I meant the pathways. well, I'm heading down there now do you want to come or meet us there later? " he asked.

'You did say great hall. Don't worry, and yeah, I'll come with you!' Rose smiled at him. She was quite looking forward to meeting this girl.

So Justin and Rose started towards the pathways to meet up with Amethyst.

Hopefully Witsy can meet William here.

"Mina... that's not the point. I would never let you do anything like that for me." Carter replied. Really, why would she think that that was a better solution?

"Yes. I do know all of that." He had been living with the girl for the past 6 years of his life. He'd like to think he knew her quite well. "Well I have no idea if there's a clause or not. I'm not even sure where to go about looking that up. All I know is that when they came to my house 7 years ago, to deliver that letter, they told us that we could never tell anyone."

And so nobody knew... until now.

"Well, please enlighten me Mina. Which "company" of mine do you hate so much?" Last he checked, he didn't ever spend time with anyone outside their mutual group of friends. "What do you mean I would never defend you? I wouldn't be able to stand hearing anyone say anything bad about you." Did she already forget that he punched her boyfriend last year for the very same reason?

"Well everyone except me apparently." he said throwing his hands up. "I don't know how you just expect me to know these kinds of things. All I know are the things they've taught me in classes." And, Puddlemere never came up in one of those.

He blinked a few times. "I knew she could see them! She kept looking right at them!" he exclaimed completely changing his tone of voice. But... but what did that mean? "Are... are you telling me...?" he asked suddenly completely worried. She freaked out about him being a wizard. How was she going to feel knowing she was a witch?

"I'm sorry! Things came up." he said running a hand through his hair. He was never going to be able to explain exactly what was going through his mind... nor was he sure he even wanted to.

Andddd... there was that brought up again. "I didn't write anyone during that time." In fact, he barely spoke to anyone during that time. It took him nearly a year to recover from what happened between him and Marie. And he probably would have been in a sad mood longer had it not been for Patroclus who finally told him enough was enough.

He blinked at her next words. Why did everyone react to the news the same way? Nobody seemed particularly excited that he and Marilyn had reconsiled.

Well, at least now someone finally admitted Carter wasn't completely to blame...

"I don't know. Apparently I'm just one of those people that... don't... notice... anything." That sounded better in his head. "I guess I just wasn't looking for that when it came to you Mina. You'd always been... I dunno... better than me." He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the ground. He's always thought she was beautiful and intellegent and deserved the very best. It just... never occurred to him that he might have been that guy for her.

Maybe it was because he thought she knew him to well...

"I don't want you to apologize for that Mina. I want you to be happy." And he wanted to make sure that Evan just wasn't some twisted way to get back at him.

She was crying... crying in a way that he had never seen her cry before.

And he wasn't even sure if he was capable of comforting her.

What do you say when a girl is crying because of you...? Not because of something you did to her... but because of something you never realized?

"Best friends are supposed to be willing to do anything for each other," Mina replied back. "Whether it's the point or not, I was willing to do that for you." She seriously would have done anything for him and she knew that would never chance, even against her better judgement. He had probably ruined her and she would forever want to put him before herself. That was probably just why it hurt so much for her to even be there at that very moment.

Shaking her head, she felt like she just wanted to throttle her exbestie. "Seriously, since when do you follow EVERY rule you are given? They tell you that to scare you into saying nothing, you could have told Anya and I doubt you would have been turned in for breaking the law." Okay, maybe she wasn't completely sure about this, but it would be foolish and completely idiotic to think that telling his own sister about who he was was going to send them all to the Ministry in danger of punishment.

Narrowing her eyes, she gave him that look. The look that she thought she would NEVER give him. The look that she only reserved for those that she couldn't completely stand and she was about cut from her life. Her eyes were usually so loving and shining with happiness, but not at the moment. They were dark and nothing happy was shown in them. Did he really want her to tell him? "Namely Marilyn and Rafe. You wanted name and there you have them." He wanted the truth and there is was for him to have. She tried her best to be civil to those two but it was their last year and wasn't even worth her time to act civil to people that for year had whispered and laughed about her for seven years. "She hasn't changed from the girl she was back then and you are just fooling yourself to think she's different." Her bestie had so much potential and he was once again blinded by that girl. The only difference this time, she wasn't going to stay around to pick up whatever mess was left. "I know that you dislike Evan. I'm not stupid but you know he's good for me. That's the difference. She's not good for you at all and one day you will finally see it. But where will that leave you?" There would always be a part of her that would want to be there for him, but it was time that she walked away with whatever pride she had left.

"Oh you defend me when you think you it's when I need it. But it was never when I really needed it." Yes, she was being childish about it. She knew that he would defend her no matter what, but it wasn't when she needed it and it wasn't when people close to him had wronged her. Maybe he hadn't known better, but that didn't make what happen hurt any less in her mind. She knew that she shouldn't even care what they thought about her, but hearing it was like having her wounds reopened. When she needed someone to protect her, he wasn't around to hold her up and help her move on. He wasn't there to reassure her that she wasn't what they said she was. She should have needed someone there to tell her these things but she had wanted it so much. "You have your friends and I will have mine. We all make decisions and I think it's probably time that we just face what those decisions have brought us." They all would be setting out on their own in only a few months, maybe to never see each other again; why not just split ways now and not later.

"You never really question things, do you?" She didn't make the habit to question much, but that didn't mean that her mind didn't do it every moment of the day. "Do you think that we know all the answers? Just because I was born into it all, doesn't even mean that I know it all." The only reason she even knew about Puddlemere was because as a child she had heard her brothers talking about it. "You aren't going to find everything you want or need to know from what we are taught." Maybe that was what made them completely different. She never really took everything for what its face value was. Her mind always question and she needed to find out more about almost everything.

"I always told you that she was special and if you aren't willing to see it, so be it." She knew that it could be possible that Anya could be magical. The little girl did have that aura about her and she felt something strong with her little friend. Anything was possible, right? "You might not want to think about it, but it's possible and not telling her would just be a moot point now." If Anya was just like them, she had even more of a right to know about everything. "She's seen a lot of things that she shouldn't have seen if she was just a muggle. Things that she shouldn't have even noticed if she was a normal muggle." In the time that she had been blessed to know the little girl, she always had a feeling that Anya wasn't normal at all. She was extremely special and there was a lot of potential there. They might not have been connected by blood, but Carter and Anya had something special about them and so much potential in their lives.

"You know what? Things will always some up and we will make decisions," she sighed. It was really starting to take a toll on her now. They just kept going around in circles again and again. "I know I'm being silly and wanting to put myself first here, but I think I have earned it! For years, I put everyone before me. When was it going to be my turn? When did people think about me before they acted?" She wanted to know she was important enough to someone to be put first, but she had put that faith in the wrong person time and time again. "All I asked for was a little note or something. Wasn't I worth at least that?" Fine, she hadn't written herself. It was a two way street, but why did it have to be her that made the first move each time?

They were both at fault for not keeping in touch and she knew she was just being stubborn about it, but she felt she earned it. She was just a girl that wanted a boy to see her. A boy that would never love her but a boy that she would love forever. It was like there was a line that had been drawn at that moment back then and neither of them were willing to cross it now. There was so much damage to what they once had and maybe it was just too late for it to be salvaged now. She should have written him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. It was the first time that she was unhappy about how her bestie had turned out after her leaving Hogwarts. She didn't like how things had changed and she didn't want to have to face that the boy she once held so high in her mind wasn't the boy she thought. He wasn't capable of the things she had heard and she couldn't just look the other way about it. She just let him handle it and maybe she was a fool to let that happen. Yet, here she was about to do it again. He needed to do this alone and see what he would be losing and gaining by his actions.

Hate was an emotion that she wished that she wasn't capable of, but there is was when she thought about just who was back in Carter's life. She knew that he would never truly say that he had picked, but she knew in the pit of her stomach that he really had. It was always going to be that girl. She had never felt this much pain in the depths of her soul as she felt at the moment. Yes, in third year she felt some intense dislike for Marie; but it was nothing like this emotion now. It was wrong to her to feel like this and in all her seventeen years, she had vaguely felt anything like this for maybe one other person in her life and that was someone she was related to. This emotion was intense and she didn't like how it felt at all.

"You know placing blame isn't going to take back what happened." It was done and over with. Her friends were all fools and that included her as well. They had all make a mess of everything and there was no real going back now. They could try to repair what was damage or replace what was lost, but was it even worth it to some of them anymore?

"You are and will always be the dimmest boy I know." It was really annoying that in all the time they had been friends, he was just as clueless as the first time they met in the forest. She wasn't even that good at hiding her feelings for her bestie and he never realized at all. Hearing the words coming from him, she clinched her fists. It was a good thing her wand was stored away or she would have hexed him something serious by now. ""You really aren't doing yourself any favours by saying that and making me feel even worst." Like she needed to keep hearing that he NEVER looked at her like that. The stabbing in her heart just got more intense hearing that. He thought that she was better, but in her mind he was kept telling her that she wasn't enough. She wasn't worthy to even register even slightly to him. "Yeah, I'm better than being someone's second or even fourth choice. When it comes down to it, that's what I'll always be right?" She would never really be the first choice and it was becoming more and more clear each moment. "If I was really better than you, why was I never a choice? It just doesn't make any sense to me at all." He didn't have any trouble seeing her when he was on that love potion, but now he was telling her she was better than him. She didn't feel that way at all and nothing he could possible say could make her feel that way.

She thought that she knew him like no one else and vice versa, but this whole thing was just making her see that maybe she really didn't seem to know or understand him at all.

"I know Evan will make me happy and even if he breaks my heart again; I'll never feel as broken as you have managed to make me feel. There was never been a day that I've regretted letting Evan into my heart." There would be rough times in their future and it wasn't guaranteed that they would make it through them all, but she was willing to risk it for him. She wanted to feel like she was the first choice for someone. She wanted to have her wish, just this one time and have it be real. "I know he will hurt me when he doesn't mean to and I might do the same to him, but when it happens it won't feel anything like this and that's comforting to me. He loves me like no one I've ever met and I love him the same way. He'll always have that part of him that loves Marie and you know, that once tore me apart; but he'll always make sure that I know that he loves me." Just as she would always love Carter, she knew it was the same between Marie and Evan. There would always be a bond there that shouldn't be able to be broken. "He'll keep me happy even when he breaks my heart, because I'll know that he loved me once and I was worth the risk. None of us are perfect and knowing that there is the risk of me not having a happy ending with him doesn't scare me at all." What she felt for her Evan was in a completely different plane than her feelings for Carter. In the end, she would give her heart completely to one man and she knew who it was always going to me. He was the one that was going to be worth the risk.

The time for hiding all her emotions was over and she had nothing left to hide now. She just let it all go and allowed herself to be free of it. It was out in the open and would be all over the school soon, but she really didn't seem to care at the moment.

She cried not just as the girl that was in love with a man she wanted to share her life with forever, she cried as the little girl that was once in love with her best friend. She was crying as the girl that went through so much in second year and as the girl that was sent away for wanting to be just more than a pretty face on the arm of just another pureblood. She was crying over so much and she couldn't stop it even if she wanted to.

"You aren't going to have to pick. I'm going to pick for you this one last time." The ultimate decision that would probably change everything for them. "I'm choosing my own happiness and that does not include you right now. You choose her once again and now I'm taking my leave from your life. Life is full of decisions and you have been making them all summer. It's just time that we face the truth. There will never be enough room in your life for me if you can't understand what you have put me through." She was really about to do this and all she wanted at that moment was for Evan to be there to keep her strong. "I really hope you are happy in your life."

They would still have to see each other until their seventh year was over, but she couldn't be his bestie anymore. She wasn't going to complete any more for something that she was never going to get. It was a losing battle and she needed to cut her losses while she still could. "I can't hate you because I do love you, but I can't be your best friend any more. We just need to live different lives right now. I won't ignore you when I see you, but don't expect me to be happy to see you all the time." She would be civil but that didn't mean that she wouldn't be torn apart inside. She would always hurt when she would see Carter, but they were at a crossroads in their life and it was time to face the facts. Their lives now didn't intertwine as they once did.

They needed time apart.