A/N: Don't own, don't sue. The first several chapters of this story will be told in flashback form, so it'll be very broken up. I am not rewriting the series with a twin in it, I wish to avoid doing that. Major points of the plot will be left out, as I'm assuming everyone reading this has already read the books. I'm just covering some key moments and adding a few of my own. If I leave out what you consider to be a key moment, please tell me by way of review and if I agree with you, I'll try to work it in at a later point. But please review anyway. Hehe. I'm not intending to pick up any of my old stories at the moment, and please don't ask me to. Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter 1: Year the First
"Avada Kedavra!"
Lily Potter saw a flash of green light erupt from the foyer and heard what must be the dying screams of her husband. And he was gone.
Just. Like. That.
She bit back her grief, knowing that it now fell to her to protect her children. She glanced backward at the crib in which her twins lay. Sandy was sleeping, blissfully unaware of the death that was quickly enveloping her. How she could sleep through the noise, Lily could not fathom. Harry, however, seemed to be awake. Lily supposed he had woken up when she had hastily placed him in Sandy's crib instead of his own. He looked confused and concerned, but he did not cry. One cubby arm was draped almost protectively over his sister.
Lily's head whipped back around when a high, cold voice spoke. "It is not you, I want," said Voldemort, his red eyes gleaming hungrily. "Step aside, and I will spare you your life. The Dark Lord is merciful, especially to those as powerful and as promising as you…"
"No," Lily said, somehow managing to make her voice sound strong and unwavering, though she could feel the hands that were gripping the crib shaking. "Never! You'll have to kill me if you want to kill my children!"
"Don't be foolish," he snapped. "Let me have the children, and you can live."
"No! Please, not my children!" she cried. "Please!"
"If you will not step aside," he said mercilessly, "then you shall die. And what a shame, too. Such a pretty little Mudblood. Avada Kedavra!"
In a flash of green light, Lily Potter crumpled to the floor. Dead.
Harry gave a loud cry, which slowly roused his sister from her slumber.
One curse should be sufficient enough to kill the both of them, thought Voldemort.
The Dark Lord turned his wand on the Potter twins.
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
Harry Potter woke to the sounds of scratching. Sleepily, he rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed. What was that noise? Was someone scratching on his door? He put on his glasses and looked around his room, quickly finding the source of the noise. His twin sister Sandy was at their desk, writing, probably in her journal. Glancing at the clock, he discovered it was half past one in the morning. "What're you doing up at this time?" he asked thickly, still half asleep.
"Oh!" she said, stifling a cry of surprised. "I couldn't sleep. I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't mean to wake you."
"It's alright," he said, climbing out of bed. He stood behind her, peering over her shoulder, and she made no move to block his view of her journal. There were no secrets between the siblings. "You're writing in your journal again?"
"Yes," she said. "I had another dream. About a flying a motorcycle, Harry, it was the strangest thing."
"Really?" he said, his eyebrows rising on his forehead. "That's the same dream I had. I wonder if we've ever had the same dreams before…"
She shrugged and continued writing. Sandy Potter was a tall, lean girl of ten years, nearly eleven. She had silky, jet black hair that reached to midway down her back and emerald green eyes. She looked almost exactly like her twin brother, except for the glasses. Her eyesight had somehow miraculously cured itself overnight after a rather stressful day of being teased about her glasses by her classmates. Harry was about the same height as his sister, though perhaps slightly taller. He had the same emerald green eyes and the same jet black hair, though he could never get his to lie flat like his sister's would. He still had to wear glasses, as his vision had not miraculously fixed itself, although there had been some curious incidents involving some bad haircuts his aunt had given him and his hair magically regrowing overnight. Though the most remarkable similarity that they shared by far were identical scars on their foreheads, both in the shape of a lightning bolt.
They were very close, as their parents had died when they were young in a car crash, according to their aunt and uncle. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had forced them into the same bedroom since they had arrived at Number 4 Privet Drive, and though most siblings would hate sharing a room with one another, it was a consolation for the twins. The only good thing about being in the Dursleys' home was when they were able to spend time together away from them.
"Do you think it'll be any different?" Harry asked suddenly.
"What d'you mean?" she said, putting down her pen and closing her diary. She turned in the chair, fixing her emerald green eyes on her brother.
"Going to a different school than Dudley," he explained. "We're going to Stonewall in the fall, and he's going to Smeltings. Will it be better, d'you think?"
"Yes," she said, without hesitation. "I mean, obviously because Dudley won't be there to make sure everyone hates us. But also… I can just feel it, Harry. Things are about to get better. Can't you feel it?"
"Yeah," he said, nodding slowly and realizing that he did, in fact, agree with her. "I do."
After a few moments of comfortable silence, he said, "We should probably get back to bed. We have to get up early for Dudley's birthday, and we wouldn't want to wake up Uncle Vernon."
"You're right," she said, grimacing. As they climbed into their respective beds, she said, "Good night, Harry."
"Night, Sandy."
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
"Dudley, get the mail."
Uncle Vernon did not look up from his newspaper as he ordered his son.
"Make Sandy get it!" Dudley whined, stuffing more bacon into his mouth.
Sticking up for his sister, Harry countered, "Make Dudley get it!"
"Don't worry about it, I'll get it," Sandy said hastily, as Harry narrowly missed a jab from Dudley's Smelting stick. She hurried into the hall and toward the front door to get the mail. Wishing to make the most of the time she was away from the table, she looked through it. "Bill... bill… bill… bill… junk…" she muttered to herself. Then she came across something rather stranger.
An envelope, sealed with red wax with some sort of crest on it, addressed to her and her brother.
Mr. Harry Potter and Ms. Sandy Potter
The Smallest Bedroom
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
Stifling a gasp, she quickly hid it under her shirt and hurried back to the kitchen, handing the rest of the mail to Uncle Vernon. Taking her seat at the table next to Harry once more, she surreptitiously handed the letter to him under the table. His green eyes widened, looking first at the letter, then at her, then back to the letter. This did not go unnoticed by Dudley.
"Sandy's got a letter!" he cried, pointing a pudgy finger at her.
"What's that?" Uncle Vernon said, a dangerous gleam coming into his eyes. "Give it here, girl."
Glaring daggers at Dudley, she handed the letter over to Uncle Vernon. His eyes widened, and he looked almost frightened. "P-Petunia!" he cried.
"What is it, Vernon?" she said, hurrying over. When she saw the letter, she turned very pale. "Is it…?"
"It must be," he said darkly. "Who else could've known…?"
"Burn it," Petunia said firmly.
"No!" burst out Harry. "That's our letter! Give it to us!"
"I'll do no such thing," growling Uncle Vernon, rising from the table. Sandy made a wild grab for it, but he pushed her down, and she hit the floor rather hard.
"Don't hit her!" Harry roared, dropping to the ground to help his sister up.
"You will not speak to me like that! After all I've given to you! Petunia, lock them in their room!"
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
Beep. Midnight.
The Potter twins turned eleven amid the sounds of Dudley's snores and a raging storm outside. "Happy birthday, Harry," Sandy said, trying to sound bright as she drew her brother in for a hug.
"Happy birthday," he replied in turn, his voice rather glum.
Bang!
The front door was knocked down, and a large, shadowy figure stepped into the building. An oversized man stepped into the dim light, his face almost completely covered by an unruly beard. "Blimey, it's rainin' ou' there, innit?" he said cheerfully.
The twins were simply speechless. Quiet whimpering in the background told them that the Dursleys had woken up at the sound of his entrance and were now huddling, scared, at a distance. "Me name is Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts," the man said, puffing his chest out proudly.
"I'm sorry," Sandy said somewhat timidly, finally finding her voice. "Hogwarts?"
"Hogwarts School o' Witchcraft an' Wizardry," the man called Hagrid said. "Where yer mum an' dad went to school o' course!"
Harry began to laugh. "Don't you get it, Sandy?" Harry said. "The Dursleys finally remember our birthday, and they decided to prank us. It'd actually be rather funny, if it weren't sort of cruel…" But as he turned to look back the Dursleys, they didn't look like they found this very funny at all. Aunt Petunia was as white as paper, Dudley looked like he had wet himself, and Uncle Vernon was trying to shield them as best he could, clutching a shotgun in his hands.
"This is no joke, Harry!" Hagrid cried. "They didn'… they didn' tell yeh?"
"Tell us what?" Sandy asked, becoming less afraid of Hagrid and more irritated with the Dursleys.
"Tha' you're a wizard," Hagrid said, bending down to almost eye level with Harry. Then turning to Sandy, he said, "An' you're a witch."
"They most certainly are not! We swore they'd never go to that school when we took them in!" Uncle Vernon shouted.
"So it's true!" Harry cried, turning on his uncle. "You lied to us, all these years? Were our parents…? What really happened to them? You told us they died in a car crash!"
"A car crash!" Hagrid said, looking insulted. "A car crash could not 'ave killed Lily an' James Potter! No sir!"
"You filthy liars!" Sandy shrieked, advancing angrily on her relatives. Uncle Vernon, despite the fact that he was the one holding the weapon, recoiled. None of them had ever seen her quite so angry. Despite all the years of living with the Dursleys, Sandy had always been the twin to bear the burden quietly, complaining very few times in the past ten years. Apparently, that was to be no more. "We're going to the school!"
"No!" roared her uncle. "We won't pay for you to be taught magic tricks by some fool in a pointed hat!"
"Never," said Hagrid dangerously and pulling out a large pink umbrella from seemingly nowhere, "insult Albus Dumbledore in fron' o' me."
He pointed the umbrella at Dudley, then there was a flash of yellow light… screaming… squealing… and a pig's tail…
It was probably their best birthday ever.
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
Harry and Sandy sat across from in each other in an otherwise empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express, chatting nervously.
"I told you things were going to be better," she told him knowingly, a grin spreading over her lips.
He smiled and said, "I know you did. And you were right."
Just then, the compartment door slid open. It was one of the redheaded children they had met on the platform. "Can I sit here? Every other seat is taken."
"Yeah, sure," said Sandy. The redhead grinned and sat next to her.
"My name's Ron," he said. "Ron Weasley."
"I'm Sandy Potter," she said, "and this is my brother, Harry."
"So you really are… them?" Ron said, awed. "I thought Fred and George were just joking. They do that quite a lot. So do you really have the… the scars?"
"Yes," Harry said, lifting his bangs so Ron could see his.
Soon, however, they had launched into a discussion of Quidditch, wizard sweets, and the wizarding world in general. It turned out that the twins were just as fascinated with the wizarding world as Ron was with the Muggle world. "So these… contumors…"
"Com...pu…tors," Sandy said slowly, chuckling. "They're used for playing games and doing work."
"Wow," Ron said. "And how do they work?"
"I'm not really sure, it's rather complicated," Sandy said. "Harry, d'you know how computers work?"
Harry looked up from his Chocolate Frog cards. "Huh? Oh, no, I don't. Not really…"
The compartment door slid open, and a bushy-haired girl poked her head in. "Why haven't you changed yet?" she said. "We're nearly there, and you don't want to make us all look like fools. Especially you two- I know who you are! You're the Potter twins! Well, you best change. I've got to go, I'm helping a boy named Neville look for his toad." Turning to Ron, she quickly added, "Oh, and you've got some dirt on your nose. You may want to take care of that." With that, she left.
"Rather bossy, isn't she?" Ron said when she had left.
"I'm probably going to get stuck with her," Sandy said miserably. "Ask Harry- I always get stuck with the nutters."
"It's true," Harry said, nodding his head. "In gym class, she was always partnered with the girls who had anger management issues."
"Bloody unlucky for you, mate," Ron said, grinning ruefully at her. He began to rub furiously at the dirt on his nose.
"Oh, let me get it," Sandy said. She licked her thumb and rubbed the dirt off his nose for him, as Ron turned pink all the way to his flaming red hair, mumbling his thanks.
Just then, the train began to slow down.
"We must be here!"
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
"POTTER! Both of you, get down here! Now!"
Harry and Sandy exchanged panic-stricken glances as both their stomachs dropped. The momentary high of realizing that they had shown up Malfoy had worn off quickly since they realized that Professor McGonagall was waiting for them on the ground. They landed quickly, side by side, Harry still clutching Neville's Rememberall in his hand. "Come with me," she said sharply, and they obediently followed.
"We're going to be expelled," Harry muttered miserably to his sister so only she could hear. She grabbed his wrist and squeezed it quickly and reassuringly before letting it go again. As they passed, their fellow Gryffindors tried to make excuses for them, but to no avail. McGonagall would not listen.
After what felt like hours of walking, they arrived outside Professor Quirrel's classroom. "Professor Quirrel, may I borrow Wood please?" McGonagall asked.
"Wood?" Sandy said, her eyebrows knitting together. "Is she going to beat us?"
Harry only had time to shrug before McGonagall reentered the hallway, followed by a burly fifth year Gryffindor. "Wood," she said, sounding ecstatic, "I have found you a Seeker and a Chaser."
"What?" he said, his eyes widening in disbelief. "Really, Professor?"
"Yes," she said, and there was no doubt about it this time- she was happy. "I saw them flying around out there- their first time, too!- they're naturals!"
"Yes, yes," Wood said, circling them now, as if they were pieces of meat. Looking at Harry, he said, "This one is light and speedy, he'll make an excellent Seeker." Turning his gaze on Sandy, he said, "She's slightly heavier-"
At this, she snorted indignantly. Ignoring her, Wood picked up her arm, feeling her muscles.
"-and a very strong arm, too! Professor, this is simply brilliant! We may actually have a chance at the Cup this year!"
Later that night at dinner, Sandy related the story to Ron while Harry shoveled food into his mouth at an alarming rate. "Wow," Ron said breathlessly, looking admiringly at her. "You two must be the youngest players in about a century!"
"We are," said Harry, pausing in his feasting for just a moment. "That's what Wood said."
"I hope we do well, though," Sandy said, looking nervous and beginning to play with her food. "Everyone is going to expect a lot out of us…"
"Don't worry," Ron said, grinning broadly at her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "You're going to be fantastic. I just know it."
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
"Follow me, first years!" cried Percy Weasley. "The troll shan't get you if you're with me!"
Ron snorted doubtfully, but they continued to follow his brother along with the other Gryffindors. Sandy, however, seized up with a sudden thought and grabbed both Ron and Harry by the collars and pulled them behind a coat of armor. "What're you doing?" Ron cried. "There's a troll loose!"
"Exactly," she whispered. "Hermione doesn't know about the troll. It's your fault she's been crying in the girl's bathroom all day anyway."
"Sandy's right," Harry agreed, nodding his head.
Ron opened his mouth, as if to protest, but then he closed it and nodded. "Lead the way," he said. Sandy grabbed both their hands and lead them as stealthily as possible to the girl's bathroom that Hermione had supposedly made her home. However, she froze in fright when she saw the troll approaching.
"Over here!" Harry hissed, thinking quickly. He dragged both his sister and Ron behind a statue, though the troll looked so stupid that Harry thought it may not have noticed if they had merely stood there gaping at it. The troll slowly walked into the bathroom, dragging its club upon the ground as it went. Once it was inside, the boys leapt out from behind the statue and locked the bathroom door.
"Yes!" Ron cried, victoriously.
Finally coming out of her fear induced trance, Sandy yelled, "You complete idiots!"
"What're you on about?" Ron asked, looking hurt. "We just trapped the troll!"
"Hermione is in that bathroom!" she shrieked, quickly unlocking the door and rushing inside, the boys right behind her.
The scene before them was this: Hermione was hiding underneath a sink, looking as though she was paralyzed with fear, as Sandy had been just moments ago. The troll was advancing upon her, raising its club. "You get her, we'll take care of him. Go!" Harry told Ron.
Ron hurried over to Hermione and began to pull on her arm. "Move," he said urgently. "Come on, Hermione, we've got to move!" But she couldn't seem to move at all. "Sandy, help me with her, would you?"
Nearly screaming in frustration, Sandy hurried over to Ron and, each of them taking an arm, they hoisted Hermione to her feet, moving her closer to the door, just as the troll demolished a sink or two. Depositing Hermione on the ground, Ron and Sandy turned just in time to see Harry launch himself at the troll and grab onto the top of its head, his wand lodging itself up its nose in the process. As it raised its club to surely kill Harry, Sandy cried, "Ron, do something!"
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
The floor shook, as though an earthquake had struck, when the troll hit the ground. Harry clambered over its body and extracted his wand from its nose. He slowly walked over to them. "All right there, Hermione?" he asked.
She nodded meekly in response. After a moment, she said quietly, "How can I…?"
"Don't worry," Sandy said, grinning and hugging her. "You can thank us later."
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
"Girl Potter has the Quaffle- what a remarkably good young Chaser that girl is- she's heading down the field, she's going to score-! Oh no, a Bludger takes just the tip of her broomstick off and she's knocked off, her broomstick spinning into the stands! She's falling, she's falling- oh and her brother, Boy Potter has caught her! Magnificent catch by Boy Potter, though I wonder if he knows that he's supposed to catch the Snitch and not his sister…"
"Are you alright?" Harry asked his sister urgently as she got herself settled behind him on his Nimbus Two Thousand.
"Yes, I'm fine," she said. "Just had a right good scare, that's all. Why don't you have Wood call a time out so you can put me down on the ground or something? You can't play with me hanging onto you like this." As she spoke, her grip around her brother's midriff tightened.
"Okay," he said, starting to fly toward the goal posts where Wood hovered. However, as he did so, his broom gave a sickening lurch. He paused in midair, then tried to continue forward again, but his broom lurched once more.
"What is that?" Sandy cried, her grip on her brother tightening even more.
"I have no idea!" he said. "It's like it's trying to buck us off!"
They continued to hold on for dear life, as the lurches and bucks of the broom became more and more violent. Soon, everyone below them had stopped to watch what was going on, and the Weasley twins were circling below them, having give up on trying to pull them onto their brooms. The broom gave a rather violent buck and Sandy lost her grip on her brother's torso, slipping off the back end of the broom with a cry. Luckily, George Weasley caught her and settled her onto his broomstick. "Having a bad day, milady?" he said, smiling at her.
"You have no idea," she said, grimacing and looking up at her twin brother worriedly.
Down in the stands, Ron turned ghostly white when Sandy slipped off the broom and looked as though he might be sick. "Come on, Hermione…" he said, trying to catch a glimpse of her bushy brown hair near where the teachers were sitting. She had gone to distract Snape.
After a few more agonizing moments, the broom stopped lurching and Harry (who had been dangling by his hand) clambered back on and zoomed toward the ground. He stumbled as he was catching the Snitch and fell from a small height of four feet, but he managed to catch the Snitch in his mouth nonetheless.
They had won.
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
Harry clambered through the portrait hole, his (well, their- his and Sandy's, that is) new Invisibility Cloak trailing behind him like a banner, and excitedly ran up the stairs to the first year girls' dormitory. However, in his excitement, he didn't notice that the steps turned into a slide beneath his feet, and he slid backwards to the bottom, landing with a rather loud thump on the floor. After a moment, his sister stuck her head out the doorway to see what the commotion was all about. "Harry!" she hissed. "What the bloody hell are you doing? It's nearly two in the morning, and you aren't supposed to come up here anyway!"
"Sandy, I've got to show you something!" he said excitedly. "Come on!"
Yawning, she slid down the ramp. Once she had reached the bottom, he grabbed her hand and did not let go of it until he had dragged her all the way to the nearly empty classroom that he had just left. "This is what you wanted to show me? You got me out of bed… at this hour… for a classroom with a mirror in it."
"Look in the mirror," he said patiently, taking her shoulders and guiding her steps so that she was standing in the perfect position.
She gasped softly. "Harry, is that…?"
"Mum and Dad?" he said. "Yeah, that is. That's our entire family, Sandy. "All of them."
"Oh," she said, her fingers longingly touching the glassy surface of the mirror. She sat herself down in front of it, hunching down just enough so that Harry could sit behind her and see their family at the same time. "Oh, Harry. This is…" She seemed to be at a complete loss for words that would describe exactly what she was feeling. But there was no need for words. Her brother had always understood her, and he always would.
"I know."
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
"Hagrid is mental!" Ron cried, nursing his wounded finger. "Absolutely mental! Look at what Norbert did to me!" He shoved his finger into Sandy's face, as if she couldn't see the large bite mark from where she was sitting. "And then he told me off!"
"So I've heard," she said dryly, looking up from her Potions essay. "Ron, you should really get that looked at."
"No, Madam Pomfrey might know what it is," he said, looking panicky. "It's not that bad."
"Well, the way you've been going on about it, you would think your whole arm had been bitten off," she told him.
"Am I really that bad of a whiner?" Ron asked, looking a bit crestfallen.
Looking sideways at him, she sighed and said, "No, Ron, I'm only teasing. I think you're really brave." He turned an outrageous shade of pink at her praise. "Besides, that can't just be a normal bite, now can it? I mean… Norbert's a dragon," she said, lowering her voice to make sure no one else heard.
"Yeah," he sighed, going back to nursing his finger. "You're right, maybe I should get it looked at it. If it gets worse, I will…"
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
"You!" Sandy cried, seeing that it was Quirrel standing in the final room, not Snape as they had so expected.
"Yes, me," he said. "Who were you expecting?"
"Well, Snape," Harry said quickly. "He tried to kill us! At that Quidditch match!"
"Snape didn't try to kill you," Quirrel sneered. "He tried to save you. I tried to kill you. Actually, I was only try to kill you." He gestured to Harry at this point. "There was no way I could make it look like an accident if both of you died in the same Quidditch match. But when that Bludger knocked her off her broomstick and you pulled her onto yours, why, it was like Christmas had come early! An easy way to off both of you and make it look like an accident!"
"But… why?" Harry choked out, for Sandy seemed to be occupied with something else. She was staring past Quirrel's head at something…
"Because I have been trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone, Potter! Me! This whole year! I let the troll in! And I would have succeeded, but the two of you and your nosy little friends kept sticking your noses where they don't belong. That's a nasty habit that'll get you killed one day." Quirrel turned to face the object behind him… the Mirror of Erised. "Now silence, both of you. While I try to work out how this funny little mirror works. Of course Dumbledore's protection would be something like this…"
Harry caught Sandy's eye, and she had a panicked look on her face. Neither of them knew what they were going to do.
"Use them…" spoke a horrible, quiet voice. Both of the twins slapped hands to their scars, which had just erupted in unbearable pain.
"Come here!" Quirrel snapped. The twins cautiously approached together. Quirrel seized Harry by the robes and placed him unceremoniously in front of the mirror. "Tell me what you see!"
Sandy screwed up her eyes tightly, wishing that Harry could hear her thoughts. Lie, Harry. You have to lie… Lie!
Harry looked into the mirror, and he saw his reflection smiling the holding the Sorcerer's Stone. His reflection dropped the Stone into his pocket, and suddenly his real pocket felt much heavier. He had gotten the Stone.
"I see myself and my sister with my family," Harry said quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly. "They're all congratulating us on making it into Hogwarts." He backed away from the mirror toward his sister, allowing the pocket with the Stone in it to brush against her so she would know. Her green eyes widened in realization, but she kept her mouth shut.
"He is lying!" said the cruel voice. "Let me speak to them."
"M-master, are you sure?" Quirrel said, looking rather frightened. "You are very weak."
"I am quite capable of carrying a conversation, Quirrel."
Reluctantly, he began to unwrap his headdress, to reveal to the horribly deformed face of Lord Voldemort plastered to the back of his head. Harry gasped and grabbed Sandy's hand, somehow feeling much stronger knowing that she was there with him. "Give me the Stone," said Voldemort simply. "Give me the Stone and I will spare you your lives. I may even honor both of you greatly. You're talented, having come this far at such a young age…"
"No! Never!" growled Harry. "You killed our parents! And you tried to kill us!"
"You're brave, just like your parents," Voldemort said, almost chuckling. "I know you have the Stone. And you have no chance of escaping me a second time… none at all. Just give me the Stone!"
"No!" shrieked Sandy. Breaking Harry's grasp on her, she pushed him toward the exit and yelled, "Harry, run! Take the Stone and run!" Before he could so much as protest, she threw herself at Quirrel.
Quirrel was caught by surprise, and he hit the ground under Sandy's unexpected weight. Even more surprising than Sandy's attack was the revelation that wherever Sandy touched Quirrel, his skin erupted into painful looking red hives, causing him to cry out in pain. Sandy had a determined look plastered on her face, though she was beginning to become pale.
Harry did not run. He simply could not. How could he leave his sister? He scrambled over to her and grabbed Quirrel's face as she continued to grasp him around the throat. Harry suddenly understood why his sister looked so pale- this was all very draining. It felt as though all the energy was being drained out of him. He was vaguely aware of Sandy collapsing next to him, but then his ability to hear was dulled. The room swam before his eyes, and his vision went black.
TIBTOTIBTOTIBTO
The night before they were due to leave Hogwarts, Sandy found herself unable to sleep. Yawning, she made her way down into the common room, hoping that sitting in front of the fire and just getting some thinking done would help her insomnia. However, she was startled to find that there was already someone occupying her favorite chair by the fireplace.
"Ron?" she said. "What're you doing up at this time?"
"Oh," he said simply. "Couldn't sleep."
"Me neither," she said, sitting in the chair next to his. "Are you okay, Ron? You've been rather quiet, you know, ever since Harry and I got out of the Hospital Wing. At least… around me." She looked at him worriedly, fearing she had done something to offend him.
"No, it's nothing like that," he said hastily. After a moment of silence, he said, "It's just that… I fancy you. A lot. I have all year."
"Oh," she said, looking rather shocked. "Oh."
"You don't have to worry though," he said quickly. "I won't act any differently around you, we can still be friends." He stood from his chair, but she quickly grabbed his hand.
"Ron!" she said sharply. "Ron, I didn't say that I don't feel the same way."
He gaped at her, gray eyes wide. "Do… d'you then? D'you fancy me?"
"Yes, I do," she admitted, blushing faintly, thought it was hard to tell in the dark. "I have for the better part of the year."
"Then… why didn't you say something, just now?" he asked.
"I was just shocked, is all," she replied. "I didn't expect you to have any sort of feelings for me."
"Blimey, this is brilliant!" he said, looking deliriously happy.
"Ron, think for a moment," she said, taking both his hands and guiding him into his seat once more. "We're eleven. We're far too young to start a relationship. And after this second encounter with Voldemort, I'm beginning to think that Harry and I just attract trouble. I don't think we should rush into this. I'm sorry." She looked up at him apologetically.
"Of course," he mumbled. "It's as much your decision as it is mine." Then, after a moment, he said, "What do you want to do?"
She thought, then said, "Wait a few years. If we still feel the same way about each other, then... then we can have real relationship."
"Alright," he agreed. "But I'm just letting you know now, my feelings aren't going to change, Sandy. It'll always be you."
She grinned at him. "Same here."
She planted a swift kiss on his cheek before heading up the stairs to bed, finally feeling as though she could drift off to sleep, ready to face the Dursleys and whatever the world had in store for her once more.