Finally! We are so sorry that this has taken SO long to get up! But finally the first chapter is here (and the whole rest of the story is written out; we're just revising it :D). So we hope you love it, and please REVIEW to tell give us all manners of criticisms! Thanx!
Shanelle Williams looked down at the boy's face. He was very pale. Jay's freckles stood out, and his lips were badly chapped from the night air. He lay there, still, the full moon shining on his bruised face. His chest did not move. He wasn't breathing.
Shanelle slowly shook her head. It wasn't possible.
His hands were cold when she grabbed them. He was gone.
Shanelle swore. She kicked the wall of the alley and sunk to the ground as her world started to fall apart. Jay Smith was dead. Her best friend existed no more - she was officially alone in the world. As the hot tears streamed down her face, she clutched Jay's hand, and thought back to when she met him for the first time.
He'd run from a boarding school, and had taken shelter in her gang a few months ago. Just as she had taken shelter in it before that, when her older brother, Stephen ran it. When Shanelle was 11, Stephan had left the gang in her charge while he went away, but she'd never seen him again. She'd had to run the gang alone. When Jay came along, it was like someone, somewhere, knew that she needed her brother back. Since they couldn't send the actual thing, they'd sent her Jay, a replacement. A better-than-the-original replacement, in her opinion. What would she do without him? How would she survive? He'd been the closest thing to family she had. Now even he had left her.
When her tears stopped, she knew what she had to do. She searched his body, looking for the cause of his death.
She punched a wall.
He'd been stabbed in the back. His shirt and jacket were soaked with blood. Shanelle let out a scream of anger as she came to terms with the knowledge that Jay had been murdered. And she knew exactly who'd done it.
Shanelle leaned down to kiss Jay's forehead. "I'll be back," she whispered. "This won't go unanswered." She cupped his bruised face in her hand one moment longer and then ran off into the night, looking for a certain someone. Someone who was going to pay.
"Dead? Jay's dead?"
Shanelle watched her boys faces as they came to grips with this horrible piece of news. She sighed, and tucked a strand of blue-streaked hair behind her ear. "Boys, he was killed. Stabbed in the back. They left him there, and ran." She saw fists clench. She saw the anger in their eyes. Jay had been loved by all, ever since he arrived in the gang a few months back. He was kind, always there to listen, and a wicked fighter. Plus, he had a wand. Shanelle had one too, and Jay had taught her quite a few tricks. But besides the two, no else had one.
Matt stepped forward. "What are we going to do now, Nel?"
Shanelle stared boldly at her second-in-command. "We fight. We avenge Jay. We destroy them. How does that sound?"
The gang, with looks of grim determination, solemnly nodded. Even without Jay's magic, they could still whoop the others.
The other gang.
Jerrod's gang.
"So, you think it was Jerrod?" Matt was at Shanelle's side, waiting for the enemy to turn the corner. She didn't respond. "You do. Are you gonna kill him?"
Shanelle glared at him. "I'll do what I have to do, Matt."
Matt wrung his hands nervously. "Nel, if you kill Jerrod, you'll be just like him! We're not murderers, remember?"
Something inside Shanelle snapped. "Whose side are you on? I will never be like him! They killed Jay! On purpose - and for no reason. They killed him - as in murdered him - as in took him away from us forever! What do you want me to do? Sit here and say, 'Oh, that's alright. We forgive you, even though you have no regret, and you'd do it again if given the chance...' They killed him, Matt. They killed Jay."
Matt fell silent as Shanelle's tears threatened to fall. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
"Alright then. Do what you need to. Just think about Jay for me - would he really want you to kill Jerrod?" He gave her hand one more squeeze, and said, "Here they come."
"Where's Jerrod?" Shanelle had stepped forward with Matt, as the leaders of their gang, but only Jason, Jerrod's 2nd-in-command, stood across from them.
He smiled. "Not here."
Shanelle raised her eyebrows. "Why?"
He smiled even more. "He said to tell you that he was getting a new knife. Some filthy fag bloodied up his last one." Shanelle lunged for him, but Matt grabbed her, and held her back. She fought him, but he held her even more firmly until she stopped.
"Awww," Jason started. "Is someone sad?" He traced a tear down his cheek and laughed, as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Matt couldn't hold her down after that. Shanelle was on top of Jason, pummeling the living daylights out of him, before Matt could blink.
It was a mess after that. Fists were flying everywhere. Shanelle's gang was easily winning. Right as she had them ready to surrender though, she heard a chuckle. She turned to find Jerrod with his knife to Matt's neck, ready to slit it.
"Jerrod? What the bloody hell do you think you're doing!"
Jerrod laughed again. "Oh, Nellie dear. I don't know what you're talking about." Shanelle clenched her fists at the name and walked towards him.
"No-no. Not one more step! Or it'll be you who sends him to his grave." Matt winced as Jerrod dug the knife harder into his neck.
"Jerrod, you wouldn't!" he squeaked.
Jerrod ignored him and smiled at Shanelle again. "So, you have a pleasant evening last night?"
Shanelle bit her tongue and tried not to fall for the bait. "Give him here."
Jerrod smirked. "Not likely. He's mine now." Matt paled but caught Shanelle's eye. He nodded.
Shanelle yelled, "Expelliarmus!" as Matt elbowed Jerrod in the stomach. Jerrod lost his knife and was clutching his stomach when Shanelle tackled him. She sat on him, glaring him down.
"You killed him. You killed Jay."
He spat at her.
"You damn murderer!" She raised her wand.
"Shanelle."
She looked up at Matt. "Remember Jay." He backed away. That just made her angrier. She pointed her wand at Jerrod. She thought the words in her head. She saw him dying. For Jay, she thought.
"STOP!" Big hands grabbed Shanelle around the middle and lifted her off of Jerrod. Jerrod lept up and smirked at Shanelle. She swung her fist at the man, but he caught it with his hand.
"I said stop." He looked to be in his 40s, and he wore black robes, with some kind of insignia on the front. He held a wand in his hand, and Shanelle got the feeling that he knew how to use it. "This ends now."
Shanelle glared at him. Who did he think he was? Some outsider was interfering with her, when she was just about to avenge Jay.
"Who the bloody hell are you?"
The man sighed. "Someone who knows how to fight with a wand much better than you. And you!" He glared at Jerrod, who was trying to slink off. "Now, I'll explain everything once we get back to Hogwarts, but we need to go now, otherwise I'll be late for my meeting."
Shanelle raised her eyebrows. "Hogwarts?" Jay had mentioned Hogwarts once or twice, saying he'd learned some magic there, but quit. It was the the boarding school he had run from.
"Yes, Hogwarts. Now are you coming nicely, or do I have to put you out?"
Shanelle thought about it for a moment. "First let me deal with him." She pointed at Jerrod.
The man shook his head. "He's coming with me. And so's that one. " He nodded towards Matt. Shanelle swore. He was breaking up her gang.
She looked over to her boys. They gazed back at her. They looked pretty bad. They had won, but they were definitely tired.
"Nel, just-just go. We… without Jay, or Stephan, for that matter, it just isn't the same. It's not real. It's stupid." One of the older boys, Dale, had spoken. "I'm outta here." The rest of them followed.
Shanelle nearly cried. Since last night, her world had been turned upside down and shaken, and it was still shaking. She turned to the man.
"Fine!" She spat. "Have it your way! Let's go."
Haley Gerald sat on the edge of her four poster bed and stared across the dormitory. Separating her from the opposite wall were three other beds, identical to her own, a large armoire, and a pile of suitcases stacked neatly on the floor. The top suitcase had been left open, revealing the pale blue dress inside, with a silver logo on the shoulder that read "Beauxbatons, France's Finest Academy of Witchcraft."
But Haley wasn't looking around the room. Her gaze was fixed on a poster which hung from the opposite wall. It was a smallish sized piece of parchment - just slightly bigger than the pages of the textbooks which were piled on her bed - with a magical photo printed on it, portraying the face of a pretty teenage girl who was smiling and laughing. The girl resembled Haley quite strongly, the most notable difference being that the girl on the poster looked a few years older. She had dark brown, almost black hair, which hung in curls down to her elbows, tan skin, and brown eyes. She, like Haley, wore the pastel blue Beauxbatons uniform.
Under the photo was the headline "Missing! Jacqueline Gerald, 17 years old, student of Beauxbatons. Last seen March 7th."
Today was August 25th. Haley rose and crossed to the poster. She stared at it for a moment, tracing the outline of her older sister's smiling face. How ironic that they should show a picture of her laughing on a missing poster.
"Haley."
Haley turned to see Ms. Beauclerc in the doorway.
"Your parents have arrived," she said in French. She crossed the room and took Haley's cold hands in her own warm ones, gazing sadly into her eyes. "You know, you don't have to leave us."
Haley shook her head. "I can't be happy here," she replied in the same language.
"But will going somewhere else make you happier? Somewhere you have no friends, no one to comfort you, to share in your sorrow?" Ms. Beauclerc retorted.
"Somewhere no one knows about it?" Haley sighed. "Yes."
"Haley. Just know that you are in all of our prayers, and that we share in your hope that-"
"I don't have any hope," Haley said, in the same monotone that she had struggled to maintain ever since Jac had disappeared. "Jac is gone. She's never coming back. So the best thing for me is to leave it all behind."
She turned abruptly so that Ms. Beauclerc wouldn't see the tears forming in her eyes, pulled her hands away from Ms. Beauclerc's grasp, and walked over to her suitcase. She closed in and fastened the buckles.
"I'll be downstairs," Ms. Beauclerc said softly.
Haley took her uniform hat and placed it on her head, then she picked up her suitcase and left the room without looking back. She made her way down the elegant spiral staircase, past ancient portraits and marble statues of famous witches. Descending the last step, she passed under the archway and entered the entry hall. The other students in the hall gave her a wide berth, and she caught several sympathetic looks and snatches of whispered conversation; "Jacqueline Gerald...Last march... Say she was kidnapped." First term had only begun five days ago, and already, Haley knew she couldn't handle another week of this, let alone an entire year.
She reached the end of the hall and turned into the small office on the right. A shiny plaque on the door read "Admissions." Inside, a tall, thin, fair skinned woman wearing a miniskirt, high heels, and cropped coat, and a pale man in a bowler's hat stood before a tall desk. The woman was filling out a paper that the secretary behind the desk handed to her.
The woman shot Haley a look, her beautiful features twisted into a scowl, but said nothing. She scrawled her name at the bottom of the page with a flourish, flung the paper back at the secretary, and turned on her heel, causing her expensive, designer coat to whip out behind her. "Come along, I'll be late," she snapped, and marched out of the office with an elegant stride that looked like it belonged on a runway. Of course, it did.
Haley's mother was a French model. The man, Haley's stepfather, was also French, but considerably less attractive. It had always baffled Haley as to why her mother married him. He had no particularly great characteristics, unless you considered his extreme meekness to be a winning character trait.
Haley and Jacqueline had gotten their dark complexions from their father, Rafael Diaz, a Cuban government official. They had been born to their unmarried parents when their mother was in Cuba with a modeling contract, but the couple had broken up eight months before Haley was born. Marie hadn't even known she was pregnant at the time, and Rafael never knew that Haley existed.
The trio stepped through Beauxbatons' large front doors and out into the cold and rainy outdoors. Marie snapped open an umbrella she carried as they crossed the front lawn. Then, glancing to her side, she grabbed Haley's arm and drew her in under the umbrella as well, wrapping her arm around her daughter's shoulder. They crossed to the runway in front of the school, where several carriages and their teams of horses were parked. On closer examination, the horses were not horses at all, but winged creatures - pegasi.
They climbed into one of the carriages and sat in silence as the team prepared to take off. With a jolt, the carriage was jerked off the ground and flung into the air. Out the small window, Haley could see that Beauxbatons was already 50 yards below them, the school grounds, and then the whole island, spreading out before her like a map.
"I suppose you have some explanation for this?" Her mother said suddenly.
Haley sighed and sank deeper into her seat.
"I understand your distress, but you must understand that this is incredibly inconvenient for met," she went on. "I have a huge show coming up, and this is not only taking away from my limited time, but increasing the stress in my life. In addition, since you have refused to remain at Beauxbatons, I've had to pay late fees for your admission to Hogwarts. And suppose they don't accept you! You know I can't homeschool you. What will I do with you?"
When the Sorting Hat was placed on her head, Shanelle gulped. Her fate lay with this hat that was... talking?
"Yes... hmmm... got brains, yes... but quite a bit of guts... very loyal, oh but what a mean side... I think it'll be... Slytherin!"
Headmaster Neville Longbottom, the man who'd brought her to Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, took the hat from her head. Shanelle immediately returned her cabbie hat to its rightful place.
"Well, well, a Slytherin. I should've guessed. It was either that or Gryffindor, with all that bravery." Shanelle assumed he was talking about the fight he'd seen earlier, and she almost laughed. She'd just been mad then. Not brave. But it was true. Unless you were a close friend, Shanelle usually came off as quite rude, and mean.
"Now, school starts in two days, and the Feast is tomorrow night. You'll have time to explore a bit before classes start. Oh, by the way. I just want you to know that there is no using harmful spells here. That means no hurting, and definitely no killing. Understand?" Shanelle looked at the ground as she slowly nodded yes. They both knew that she was lying.
Shanelle closed the door to her room behind her and stormed down the stairs to the Slytherin common room. She was fuming, as the three girls she had to share a dormitory with were absolutely horrid. They treated her like scum, like she was sewer garbage. The meanest of them all was Kiera Bennett. She acted like she was so much better than Shanelle.
Shanelle had had enough of them for one night. When she reached the common room, only one other person was there. A boy that looked a couple years older than herself sat on one of the couches, looking through a magazine. He had shaggy white blonde hair, and when he looked up, she saw he had twinkling blue eyes. He had a very striking appearance.
She sat down across from him, feeling a little awkward until the boy said, "So, how do you like Keira?"
Shanelle made a face at him. "Not funny. You have no idea how awful she is."
The boy laughed. "Actually I do. The girl's been crushing on me for years. She's asked me out probably 500 times. She's a handful, that's for sure. I'm Scorpius by the way. Scorpius Malfoy." He stuck out his hand and Shanelle studied it for a moment. She decided that she liked him. She shook his hand.
"I'm Shanelle Williams."
He smiled at her and said, "Shanelle's too flowery. How about Nellie?"
She shook her head hard. "If Shanelle isn't good enough, call me Nel."
Scorpius smiled again. "There we go. That's better."
Shanelle laughed. This guy was interesting. "So, does this place have sports of any kind?"
Scorpius looked at her a little strangely. "Um, quidditch."
She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
He laughed. "You don't know what that is?"
She glared. "So?"
Scorpius grinned and started explaining how Quidditch worked. When Keira walked in a little while later, Shanelle and Scorpius were sitting side by side, a piece of paper on their laps, and Scorpius was avidly drawing a quidditch game. Keira stared at them for a moment, and then stormed over to the couch.
"What are you doing talking with this scum, Scorpius? I thought we had something going!"
Scorpius turned to her and tried to smile kindly at her. "Keira! You and me will never work. Not even if you were the last person on this earth."
Keira looked so insulted that Shanelle couldn't help but add, "I mean, seriously. I think he'd even date 'this scum' before he'd actually go out with you."
Kiera screamed and ran faster than Shanelle could believe out of the room. Scorpius and Shanelle burst out laughing.
After a couple minutes of hard laughing, Shanelle said, "My stomach hurts." Scorpius groaned. "Let's go before she comes back." Shanelle nodded and they left the Slytherin house.
Nervously, Haley fingered the small envelope in her hand. She stood on the steps of Hogwarts castle, dressed in a coat and scarf, her suitcase on the ground next to her. The Hogwarts Express had already left London Station by the time she arrived there with her parents, so they had put her on a flying taxi, not trusting her to apparate, or even use the floo network, alone. The taxi had flown her over Hogsmeade and right up to the steps of Hogwarts before it dropped her off.
Now, Haley stood alone on the front steps of the school, her admissions form clutched in her hand, and all her possessions in the case beside her. She couldn't be afraid - this was a new place, where no one knew her. Where there weren't rumors, where she wasn't the gossip of the school. Here, she could be anyone she wanted to be. She could be happy again. Resolutely, she squared her shoulders and walked inside.
She entered a long corridor with numerous doors coming off of it. She could hear people talking, but there was no one to be seen. Then, a young woman stepped out from a room to the right. She looked surprised to see Haley.
"Oh," she said, glancing at Haley's suitcase with the Beauxbatons tag on it, "You must be one of the transfers," She smiled and held out her hand. Haley put down her suitcase, and shook it. "I'm Professor Kenderson. It's nice to meet you." She had blonde hair, blue eyes, tan skin, and a strange accent that hinted that she wasn't British.
"I'm Haley Gerald," Haley replied, smiling.
Kenderson took her wand out of the pocket of her loose jeans and held the tip up to her cheek. "Filch? Could we get you down here in the entry hall for some luggage?" She said into it. A moment later, an old man appeared from one of the adjoining corridors. He had wild, white hair and an unshaven face, a stooped back, and skin so wrinkled it was almost impossible to see his eyes. Without a word he took Haley's suitcase and left.
"Come with me," said Professor Kenderson, and led the way down the corridor and up several flights of stairs. Finally, she delivered Haley to a large, round office decorated with countless globes, maps, and bookcases. Behind a desk sat a middle aged man. He looked up when they came in.
"Ah, a transfer," he said with a smile. "What is your name, miss?"
"Haley Gerald," Haley replied.
"I'm Professor Longbottom, the headmaster. Pleasure to meet you. Now, I'm afraid that some extremely important business has called me to cut short the introduction I had planned for our transfer students, but I have still salvaged the time to have you sorted privately, rather than with all the first years. Come sit down, dear." He gestured to a stool in front of the desk.
Haley sat. The headmaster turned around and took a dilapidated witch's hat from the shelf behind him. Then, leaning over his desk, he placed it on Haley's head.
"Hmmmm..." Haley jumped when she heard the hat speak. The professor chuckled to himself.
"It gets the newbies every time," He smiled.
"This is complicated," the hat said again, "She's powerful enough, could be a Slytherin... and there's quite a bit of courage, though it doesn't show on the outside. She could make a fine Gryffindor. Lots of kindness, Hufflepuff would be delighted to have her. But most of all, there's more than enough wisdom... that's it, RAVENCLAW!" The hat bellowed the last word.
Professor Longbottom smiled and removed the hat from Haley's head, replacing it on the shelf. "You'll make for a fine Ravenclaw - they'll be happy to have you. Now, Professor Kenderson will show you to your dormitory, and then you'll have time to unpack before the feast tonight. I hope you find Hogwarts to your liking!"
With that, Haley followed Kenderson out of the office, down spiral staircases, through a maze of corridors and over changing stairs, through a password locked door, and into her new life at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
AHHHHHH! Hope you enjoyed it! Again, PLEASE LET US KNOW! Love you all! - Rose & Cora