Minutes to Midnight.

I sighed as I slid down the wall in the Room of Requirements. The first DA meeting was over, and I was left alone to my thoughts.

What happened to the old days? I thought. What happened when it was me and MiMi and Draco as a team?

"Tch, what happened to everything being simple with my two moron brothers?" I muttered to no one.

A piece of my black hair flopped in my face and I sighed again. Then I smiled, remembering the first day I had my hair dyed blonde.

"WHAT IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR?!" Sasuke bellowed.

"I had Deidara dye it for me. Don't you like it?" I said with a synyster smile.

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "You really are something else, aren't you?"

I could tell that as much as he didn't want to admit it, Sasuke liked my rebellion. He preferred that I didn't follow certain rules.

Follow certain rules... My mind pondered.

Where is there a rule written where I have to keep my black hair?

I waved my wand and summoned Deidara.

"Renee, isn't this a surprise! Or should I call you Isabelle now?" He said, giving me a hug.

"I don't care what you call me, but I need you to do me a favour."

"What favour, my dear?"

I paused, and said, "I need to ditch the black hair."

"What'd you have in mind?" He was always amused and overjoyed when I told him I wanted to screw with my hair.

"How about Avril Lavigne?"

"Blonde again, hmm?" Deidara winked.

I rolled my eyes. "Can you do it?"

"Of course I can!"

-Next Day-

I walked into another DA meeting after a pointless day of skipping all my classes and no talking to Draco, and all eyes turned on me. I figured I'd save my hair change for this.

"OH MY GOD! You went blonde again!" Mia exclaimed as she ran up to me.

I nodded. "Yupp, Avril Lavigne style."

"But...how?!"

"I sat in here for a while last night thinking and then I had Deidara dye it for me. I got bored and curled it around noon today."

"I like it." Adrian commented, putting an arm on my shoulder.

~*~*~*~*~

Today was Harry's day to teach and we were working on Patronuses. Most were having difficulties, but some of us were doing well.

MiMi's Patronus turned out to be a dove, James's was a hawk, Adrian's a wolf, and mine...

"Expecto Patronum!" I said. And out of my wand came what looked like a cat with three tails.

"AH!" I heard Mia exclaim.

"What?" I asked her as I played with the thing.

"Izzy! That's the Three-Tails!"

"The cat demon thing?"

"YEAH!"

"Oh..it's so cute!" The little Three-Tails sat perched on my shoulder with its tails slinking down my other shoulder.

"I don't think cute will protect you, Isabelle." Harry told me.

"I don't think it's cute when it fights." Adrian said. He glanced down at his wolf patronus and pointed at me. His wolf came charging at me and my cute little Three-Tails jumped down, got HUGE, and growled loud enough to make Adrian's wolf slink back.

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed. "I thought Aki was gonna eat your wolf!"

Everyone just stopped and stared at me.

"Wh-what?" Adrian said.

"I said, 'I thought Aki was gonna eat your wolf'."

"That's what I thought you said." He looked about ready to laugh.

"So?"

"Did you seriously name that thing?" Mia asked me.

"Uh, duhh. Aki - short for Akiza." I rolled my eyes and Aki perched her small self back on my shoulder.

"Right..." Harry said.

[[♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥]]

Over the next few days I taught everyone a little bit of my wiccan magic like finding their element, Adrian taught them how to find their Spirit and put it into a form (apparently I'm the biggest freak show here because mine's not only unstable but my Spirit Form is a rose which is apparently super-duper rare and such), and Harry worked more on Patronuses.

I was currently standing in Mia's room, staring at her calendar and clutching the little shell necklace.

"Tomorrow's the big day, huh?" She commented.

I smiled sadly. "Yup, I get to see my mom for the first time on both of our birthdays."

Val came pecking on MiMi's window and I let her in, taking the note she had with her.

"It's from my mom and Howl." I said.

"Read it! Maybe she's excited!"

"Isabelle,

I'm sadly afraid to inform you that Nikita isn't doing so well and we're changing locations. We will let you know when you can visit us and hopefully it will be soon. But the Death Eaters aren't as dim as we presumed.

Happy birthday anyways.

-Howl"

"Awh, I'm so sorry, Iz." Mia said, putting a hand on my shoulder. When I didn't respond, she sighed. "You're going to do something stupid and reckless, aren't you?"

"That is my specialty, isn't it?"