Chapter One

The Wolfsbane potion is an exceedingly complex potion that assists in relieving the symptoms of lycanthropy, but does not act as a cure. The person suffering from lycanthropy must consume a goblet full of the potion for an entire week preceding the full moon to work properly. Failure to do this –

"Ah!" I jumped, clutching my chest in one hand and Wolfsbane: A Medicinal History in the other. A loud bang followed by muffled swearing from the aisle over had interrupted my reading. As hesitant as I was to leave my reading (as wolfsbane had become my personal topic of the month to study, following last month's history of elm used in wand making), I reasoned I should probably go and investigate the source of the noise, lest we all face Madam Pince's wrath. Despite her being more wrinkles than skin now, the batty old librarian still refuses to leave her post in the library and takes it as a personal insult of the highest offence whenever a student defaces a book or so much as speaks in here.

Actually, she seems to be offended whenever anyone wants to borrow a book. She's like an old dragon guarding a hoard of library books. I'm starting to think she doesn't actually understand what a library is, and beginning to doubt the intelligence of whoever hired her.

How Hogwarts is one of the best magic schools, I'll never know.

Murmuring a quick charm on the ladder that was holding me approximately three metres in the air so I was able to reach the highest shelves, I slowly (and reluctantly) descended to the ground. Clutching my book against my chest, I withdrew my wand and tiptoed around the aisle. Okay, I say 'tip toed', but being completely honest, I tripped over about four stray books and knocked my hip against a table when turning the corner.

I'm amazed I even managed to stay on that ladder.

Upon turning the corner, it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the sudden brightness lighting the small study area. When they did, I had to refrain myself from screaming again. What I previously had thought was a student that made the noise was actually some kind of almost dead animal with an insane amount of untidy black fur. Actually, thinking about how big the library is and what's previously been found in it (for example, in my first year, the biggest source of excitement came from when four trolls clubs had been found in some musty old corner – they never found the trolls) this isn't that surprising. It's still pretty gross though.

The black thing moved. "Why…why do we even have to know this…I hate this…urghh…" It moaned. Wait – that's not an animal. As far as I know (though I wouldn't put it past Hogwarts) animals don't talk, nor do they wear Slytherin ties. So that weird black haired thing must be a weird black haired person.

I pity their hairbrush.

Sneaking up behind the groaning figure, I peeked over their should to see what all the fuss was about and spotted an empty piece of parchment with the title 'Centaur Massacre of 1759'.

I sighed. "Well, for one thing, the massacre was in 1749, not 59."

…

Oh dear.

The black haired figure lifted their head from the table and I found myself looking into the bright green eyes of Slytherin 6th Year, Albus Potter.

"Huh?" He replied groggily, wiping at a few tears (which I pretended not to notice).

Resigning myself to finish the situation my big, annoying mouth has gotten me into; I take a seat next to Albus and point to his title. "Er, sorry, but the massacre was in 1749, not 1759. 1759 was when elm began to be used to make wands and centaurs protested, outraged over the substantial loss of forest –"

"No, I meant 'huh' as in who are you?" Albus interrupted, eyes narrowing slightly as he glanced at my Hufflepuff tie.

Well, rude.

It's not like we've shared classes for the past six years or anything.

I however was above such petty things as inter-house rivalry and gave him what I hoped was a kind smile. "Sorry. I'm Clio Appleberry, 6th year Hufflepuff. I'm in the same History of Magic class as you. I heard a bang when I was reading in the next aisle over so I thought I should probably come over and see what it was in case it happened to be one of those missing trolls from a few years back." He cracked a bit of a smile at that. "Anyway, when I saw what you were working on, I couldn't really stop myself from pointing out what was wrong. I'm a bit obsessive about History of Magic." I finished apologetically.

He was quiet for a few seconds before dropping his head into his hands and groaning again. "It's fine. I'm just having a bit of trouble with this essay, that's all. I'll be fine."

"Oh…are you sure? It's due tomorrow after all and it's already 9pm." I said hesitantly.

"Yes, thank you for that reminder!" He snapped.

I leaned back in the chair. "Whoa. Chill. I was just trying to help." Never mind the fact that he never asked for my help…

"Well, I never asked for your help."

Well then. That was a lot ruder coming from his mouth than my mind.

I sighed and stood up to leave, before glancing down at his hunched figure.

Sitting firmly back down again, I reached out and grabbed Magical Massacres from next to his parchment and opened it up to the chapter on centaurs. "Okay Albus, literally everything you need to know to write a decent essay is in this chapter. Trust me, I tried other sources when writing mine but they all just repeated the information that was already in here. "

I flipped over the page and pointed to The Massacre of 1749.

"This has everything you need. Binns' mind is a terrifyingly boring, uncharted place that works in terrifyingly boring and mysterious ways so make sure you fit in as many statistics as you can. Even if your writing is complete shit, he will literally not even give two Hippogriffs as long as you have a heap of accurate statistics." I explained, grabbing his quill and beginning to note down important facts on a spare bit of parchment.

Albus scratched his head. "Why are you helping me?" He enquired.

"Because," I replied, continuing to jot down dates and numbers, "I want to. It's sixth year; we all want to do well on out subjects to pass into NEWT level, and I think we should all be trying to help each other out as much as we can so we all can achieve that."

"Oh…that's, er, nice of you." He cleared his throat. "Thank you. And sorry, for being such an arse before."

"Not a problem." I smiled at him.

He grinned in response, though it faded away when he looked back down at the parchment. "Wait, so, um, how do I go about writing this?"

"All right, so first you want to start with a stand out sentence to catch Binns' or, more importantly, an examiner's attention…"

After parting ways with Albus outside the library with a bright wave from me and a hesitant smile from him, I made my way down to the Hufflepuff common room.

Upon arriving at the 6th year girl's dormitory however, I almost wish I'd stayed in the library.

"Neville I love you, Neville I do! When we're apart, my heart beats only for you…"

"G! STOP! And give me back my sunflowers! Stop dancing with them, you're going to damage them or they're going to fall out of the pot and die! G! GERALDINE!" Screamed a hassled looking Vivian Wen. Her normally pale skin was flushed red with anger and her long black hair was covered in leaves and strange herbs, which, actually, was quite normal for her.

Vivian Wen is a complete Herbology nut. Seriously. She spends so much time in the Greenhouses with Longbottom that the girls and I are wondering how long it'll take before she pops the question to either him or the giant venomous tentacula.

My money's on the latter.

Speaking of Longbottom, he seems to be G's topic of choice to tease Viv with. G herself is currently waltzing with a large potted sunflower around the dormitory, warbling an ode to Longbottom at a painful pitch, her bushy blonde hair in its usual plaits.

I looked helplessly towards Panna Patil (the last inhabitant of our dorm) to find her rolling her eyes in exasperation. She caught my eye and smiled, shrugging her shoulders and I laughed.

This behaviour was pretty normal for our friends.

"NEVILLE I LOVE YOU NEVILLE I DO-"

"Panna, Clio, help!" Pleaded Viv, looking between us with wide eyes.

"All right Geraldine Gribbles I think that's quite enough, don't you agree Clio?" Enquired Panna, looking at me.

I nodded firmly and smirked slightly. "Definitely. I don't think my poor ears could deal with a reprise of your singing."

Panna and Viv laughed whilst G placed her hand over her heart in mock offence. "Excuse moi, Clio, I'll have you know my voice has been compared to the likes of Celestina Warbeck and is, and I quote – 'a delight to listen to!"

"Who said that; your mum?" I replied, laughing.

"Well, yes. But the sentiment stands!"

"Okay G, give the plant back to Viv and apologise." Said Panna, the peacekeeper of our group.

G shrugged and smiled apologetically at Viv, handing her the Sunflower. "Sorry Viv, you're just so easy to wind up!"

"I don't mind when you tease me because I know it's all in good fun, but don't bring my plant into it next time! Apology accepted though." Viv said to G, smiling.

Panna clapped her hands together. "Excellent! Now that your tiff has been resolved and Clio's finally back from the library, our monthly sleepover can commence! I've already gotten all the food and drinks, so let's change into our pj's and build the fort."

As we were changing, G suddenly turned to Panna. "Panna, I've got a bone to pick with you."

"Pick away." Replied a confused looking Panna.

"Please, in the future, refrain from calling me by my birth name." G said in a huffy tone.

We all laughed; it was common knowledge how much G hated her name.

"I'm serious! I mean honestly, it's bad enough my surname sounds like some sort of dog treat, but was it really necessary for those nincompoops to call me Geraldine?! Geraldine Gribbles. I sound like the main character of some dramatic muggle four o'clock soap opera! All I need to do now is marry some bloke called Fabio, sleep with his brother, have an illicit child and my life is bloody complete!"

The rest of her complaints were drowned out by our laughter and as we began building our blanket fort, my encounter with Albus in the library was pushed to the back of my mind.

AN: Disclaimer - the marvellous world of Harry Potter of course belongs to the brilliant J.K. Rowling!

The "Neville I love you..." song bit as sung by G was taken from the movie of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when the twins and Harry are teasing Ron about Krum.

The explanation of Wolfsbane potion at the beginning of the chapter was primarily drawn from the harry potter wiki page of it.

Whoo! First Harry Potter fan fic on here for me! Okay, bit of an explanation is necessary - I've this account for a few years now and literally just logged back on to post this and I found an old fan fic I wrote. I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe as I read through it! It was completely terrible hahaha, I was actually so embarrassed by it I had to delete it.

Anyway, explanation for this story - right now it may not seem like much but I have grand plans for it! A proper plot will be introduced in a few chapters and don't worry - Clio and Albus and the other girls will all be developed as the story goes on and more of their insecurities and flaws will be exposed. I know right now there's probably a lot of cliches and such but the story will get deeper as it goes on!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it so far though! What do you think of Clio? Albus? G, Panna and Viv?

Thank you for reading, I hope you have a lovely day! :)