Hello and welcome lovely readers! If you're joining me from the end of Book One then welcome back and thank you so much for clicking forward. For newcomers, I'll give the story a brief introduction. This is a sequel to Hogwarts Chronicles: A Muggle-Born in Slytherin. If you'd like to go and read that first then follow the link at the end of this. If not, or you want a quick catch up, here's how the story stands.

Muggle-born Alaw Jones was born and raised in Snowdonia and is descended from an extinct line of Druids. On the day she was born, Lord Voldemort attempted to kill her, as he had already done with several wizarding children including Harry Potter. However he failed and was grievously wounded. When Alaw came to Hogwarts University, her odd ancestry allowed her to be Sorted into Slytherin. Throughout the year, students were attacked by a rogue Dementor set loose by the possessed Quirrel on Voldemort's orders.

Alaw and her friends eventually discovered that the Dementor was collecting souls to be used in a ritual to restore Voldemort to full strength. Luckily, Alaw was able to stop the ritual and release the souls just in time. Quirrel tried to strangle her, but a strange magic kicked in and saved her, making Quirrel crumble to ash. Dumbledore later explained to Alaw that centuries ago, the Druids placed a protection on their children, meaning that anyone who tried to kill them before they were legally adults would die. So Alaw would be safe until her 21st birthday.

Now, with their second year at Hogwarts about to begin, Voldemort waits to take his revenge on the students…

So there you go! If that blurb didn't put you off, please use the address below to check out the first book.

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Chapter One

The Burrow

The bar of the Leaky Cauldron was quite busy that day. As it was the summer holidays, many Hogwarts students and their families were flocking to the capital to buy their equipment for the new school year, starting in a few weeks' time. The atmosphere in the pub was not as cheerful as it usually was, most people were talking amongst themselves very seriously, with grave expressions on their faces. A group of warlocks over by the window were puffing on their pipes and shaking their heads in a world weary sort of way. Two witches were leaning against the bar and gossiping earnestly, whilst Tom the landlord served them drinks. Only one person was alone in the pub that day, and she was sitting at a small table at the centre of the room, reading the Daily Prophet. She was a plain girl in her late teens, a little plump with shoulder length mousy brown hair.

Her forget-me-not blue eyes were skimming over the article before her, a slight frown creasing her forehead as she read. The only thing remarkable about the girl was her clothes. She was wearing dark denim jeans and a green polo shirt with the Slytherin crest stitched onto the breast pocket. It wasn't the sort of shirt one could buy in a wizarding shop, the girl had obviously stitched the crest on herself as it wasn't particularly neat. These clothes wouldn't have warranted a second glance outside the front door of the pub in the streets of London, but in here, they clearly marked her out as a muggle-born. She'd earned herself quite a few side-ways glances since sitting down with her glass of gilly-water half an hour ago, but she didn't seem bothered.

Alaw Jones had only arrived in the capital that morning by the ten o clock train from Holyhead. After getting off at Euston station, she'd caught the bus to Charring Cross road and hauled her luggage into the Leaky Cauldron, ordered her drink, picked up the abandoned newspaper and sat down to read. She was well aware that her appearance was considered eccentric, even scandalous, but she didn't care. She'd dealt with far worse during her first year at Hogwarts. Alaw had been most perturbed to discover that she was a witch, but she'd thrown herself into the wizarding world with great enthusiasm. She was muggle-born, meaning that neither of her parents were magical, and it had taken quite a few confundus charms to make Mr and Mrs Jones abandon their nosey natures and refrain from asking too many questions about Alaw's university life.

She didn't like lying to them, much less bewitching them, but it was wizarding law and there was little she could do. Muggle-borns only made up five present of the wizarding population in Britain and they were often subject to ridicule and outright prejudice by other, pure-blood, wizards. Besides being a muggle-born, there were several things about Alaw that made her highly unusual, even among wizards. First off, she had been born and raised in Wales. There were very few Welsh wizards due to an unlucky combination of historical mishaps. The few families that were left couldn't trace back their ancestry in the country farther than a handful of generations. But Alaw belonged to a very old line indeed.

The Druids had once been the magical caste of the Celts. They had been respected and sometimes revered, but all that had changed with the Roman invasion. Druid lines had been crippled and never truly recovered, and they died out completely sometime during the tenth century. But then along came Alaw, proving that at least one of the Squib lines had survived. On top of her curious heritage, Alaw had managed to cause a scandal when she arrived at Hogwarts and got herself Sorted into Slytherin house, the first muggle-born ever to do so. Alaw privately suspected her Sorting had been down to her ancient blood-ties, but that didn't stop most of her house-mates harassing her for the entire year.

Her sorting had brought her into conflict with the Ministry of Magic, as well as her peers. She was reading an article in which the Minister, Cornelius Fudge, was quoted, and her eyebrows were moving up and down her forehead with remarkable speed as her eyes travelled down the page.

BLACK STILL AT LARGE

Sirius Black, possibly the most infamous prisoner ever to be held in Azkaban fortress, is still eluding capture, the Ministry of Magic confirmed today.

"We are doing all we can to recapture Black," said the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, this morning, "and we beg the magical community to remain calm."

Fudge has been criticised by some members of the International Confederation of Wizards for informing the Muggle Prime Minister of the crisis.

"Well, really, I had to, don't you know," said an irritable Fudge. "Black is mad. He's a danger to anyone who crosses him, magic or Muggle. I have the Prime Minister's assurance that he will not breathe a word of Black's true identity to anyone. And let's face it — who'd believe him if he did?"

While Muggles have been told that Black is carrying a gun (a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other), the magical community lives in fear of a massacre like that of twenty years ago, when Black murdered thirteen people with a single curse.

Alaw enjoyed a brief chuckle upon imagining the reaction of her current Prime Minister – a pompous twat in her opinion – upon meeting the equally bumbling Fudge. Alaw had met the Minister twice the previous year, and the last time she had grabbed him by the arm and threatened to ram her shoe up his arse. Needless to say, she was not a fan of the Ministry. And the way he was quoted in the article sounded exactly how she remembered him.

Sirius Black was not an unfamiliar name to Alaw. She had done considerable research into the Wizarding War of the last century, for Defence Against the Dark Arts essays but also to sate her own curiosity. She knew Sirius Black had been one of the first Death Eaters to be caught after Voldemort disappeared. He had been cornered down a busy London street by a member of Dumbledore's resistance. Before the Aurors could show up, Black had blown half the street apart, killing the 12 muggles mentioned in the article and the unfortunate wizard. By all accounts, Black had been half deranged when the Aurors finally arrested him. He was deemed mentally unfit for trial and was sent to Azkaban.

The thought of a maniac like that loose on the streets was quite frightening. It was this that was being discussed by everybody in the pub. Black had been free for nearly a week now and no one had seen hide nor hair of him. If he truly was insane, how could he be avoiding detection so well? And if he wasn't, what was he up to? Alaw folded up the newspaper and dropped it back on the table with a sigh. Her life in the past year had become nothing but a long list of worries. At first these had been limited to the bullying of her housemates, but then Voldemort had been thrown unpleasantly into the mix. Many people believed – or hoped – that the Dark Lord was dead. Alaw, unfortunately, knew better.

As she was draining her Gillywater, Alaw heard a whooshing noise in the next room which announced the arrival of someone by Floo Powder. The next moment, someone had thrown an arm around her neck from behind and was messing her hair up roughly.

"Oi!" Alaw cried, struggling to free herself. She managed to throw off her attacker and look around angrily, but then a grin spread over her face as she realised who was there.

"Alright Al?" asked Ron Weasley, also grinning. Alaw leapt to her feet and hugged the red-head tightly.

"Prat," she laughed. "Why did you have to scare me like that?"

"Cause it's fun that's why! Anyway, you all ready to go? Hermione here yet?" asked Ron, looking around the bar curiously. Several of the patrons were now staring at them reproachfully for causing a scene.

"I haven't seen her no," said Alaw, shaking her head.

As if on que, the door of the Leaky Cauldron opened and a sodden Hermione staggered in. Her thick, bushy hair was crackling from static and her dark skin glistened with droplets. She looked exhausted.

"It is hammering it down out there," she panted, struggling over to them with a small blue suitcase trundling along behind her. When she reached Ron and Alaw she gave them each a one armed hug before leaning over to rest her hands on her knees.

"Why didn't you get a taxi?" asked Alaw, perplexed and Hermione shook her head, still breathing hard.

"Couldn't flag one down, and the buses were playing up, so I had to walk all the way from Euston. It seems that the whole of the south-east is on the public transport today."

"Well, don't worry," said Ron, taking Hermione's bag chivalrously and trundling it into the Floo Station. "It was glorious weather when I left the Burrow, you can dry off there."

"And you're absolutely sure you're mum doesn't mind us coming to stay?" asked Alaw, shouldering her own dufflebag and following Ron and Hermione.

The Floo Station was a room roughly the same size as the bar with three fireplaces placed along one wall. They were larger than any fireplace Alaw had ever seen in the muggle world, tall enough to stand in without having to crouch and wide enough to accommodate two people comfortably. A bright green fire was crackling in each and a small queue of witches and wizards was waiting before them to take a turn. Every few moments, someone disappeared which a whoosh up the chimney.

"Oh of course not!" said a tall, red-haired man waiting just inside the door. "Molly will be delighted to have you, and so shall I. Arthur Weasley, I'm very pleased to meet you girls."

Mr Weasley offered his hand to Alaw and Hermione, beaming at the pair of them. His hair was as vivid as Ron's, but it was starting to inch back from his forehead a little. He had a very kind smile and Alaw grinned up at him instinctively.

"Yeah, don't worry about mum," Ron chipped in. "She's going to love you two, she likes having girls around the house when all she usually gets is a bunch of boys."

"Thanks for inviting us," Hermione said politely to Mr Weasley who waved a hand airily.

"Not at all, not at all. We've been looking forward to it. Seeing as you're both muggle-born, we'll have bags to talk about! Right, shall we crack on?"

He indicated the queue which they joined. Alaw and Hermione had never travelled by Floo powder before. Though she knew the principle behind it, Alaw didn't feel entirely confident stepping into very real looking flames and spinning around in chimneys. There was also something about the logistics which bugged her.

"If every wizarding fire is hooked up to the Floo Network," she began, eyeing the fireplace dubiously. "How do you stop someone from just walking into your house uninvited?"

Ron laughed and Mr Weasley smiled slightly.

"You can't just say the name of a house and Floo there without permission," Ron explained. "The Floo only lets in family members without a fuss. For everyone else who wants to visit, they have to be brought in by someone who lives at the house. Of course you can give certain people a charm which allows them to talk to your fire, you know, with just the head? But then you have to give them express permission to come through after that."

"Huh, so, like on Facebook you can message someone who isn't on your Friend List, but they can't do anything else unless you accept their request," Alaw mused.

Ron didn't seem to know how to respond to this so he just made a strange shrugging motion. They came to the head of the queue and Ron took Hermione through first. After paying the man leaning boredly against the mantelpiece two knuts each, they stepped into the fire with Hermione's luggage. Ron cried, 'the Burrow!' and they vanished, sucked into the Network in the blink of an eye. Alaw swallowed.

"Ready?" asked Mr Weasley, clapping her encouragingly on the back. Alaw nodded nervously and the pair of them stepped up. Alaw dropped her coins into the waiting hand of the attendant, before climbing cautiously into the fireplace. She dithered before touching the flames, but after a few tries she found it wasn't hot, and therefore stood there clutching her bag in one hand, and holding on tight to Mr Weasley's robes in the other.

"The Burrow!" he cried, and Alaw felt herself start to spin frighteningly.

She didn't like it one bit and she kept her mouth and eyes tight shut in case she vomited or inhaled ash. A couple of seconds later, something pushed her in the small of the back and she toppled forwards onto her hands and knees onto a hard floor covered in a bright yellow carpet. Spluttering, she looked up and saw that they had arrived in a small living room stuffed full of sofas and armchairs. Ron and Hermione had moved swiftly out of the way of the fireplace and Mr Weasley was busy brushing ash off his robes. Two pairs of hands seized Alaw under the armpits, hoisted her off the ground and deposited her on her feet.

"Nice landing, very graceful," said Fred Weasley, grinning.

"Thanks," Alaw said absently, righting her clothes. "I was going for an elegant entrance to impress the family, you know?"

Fred and George, identical to the last freckle, were a year older than Alaw but she had got on very well with them in first year. They always had her back whenever the Slytherins started being aggressive. George grinned cheekily then called over his shoulder,

"MUM! Girls are here."

Alaw heard the clattering of pots and pans from what was presumably the kitchen, and then a plump, red-headed woman appeared at the door to the living room. Much shorter than her husband and sons, she looked a little flustered but beamed when she saw Alaw and Hermione.

"Girls," she said happily. "I'm so glad you could come!"

She negotiated her way around the sofa and came to embrace Alaw, who was surprised, but quite pleased. She wasn't much of a hugger, it took her some time to get to a comfortable touching level with people, but it seemed the Weasleys were an affectionate bunch.

"Ron's told us so much about you!" Mrs Weasley said as she moved to hug Hermione as well. "Everything that happened in your first year. We were so relieved when we heard you were going to be alright after – after everything."

Alaw glanced quickly at Ron who looked back at her a little awkwardly. Alaw wanted to know exactly what Mrs Weasley meant by everything. If he really had told his parents everything about their misadventures over the past few months she doubted the pair of them would be quite so at ease. As it was, the Weasley parents took no time in making the girls feel welcome. They migrated to the kitchen where they came across a teenage girl sitting at the kitchen table whose hair and freckles showed that she could be no one but Ron's sister. She was reading Which Broomstick when they entered but put it down to smile at the newcomers.

"You've not met Ginny yet have you?" said Mr Weasley, edging around his daughter so he could reach a cupboard and start pulling out mugs to make tea.

"Hi," said Ginny. Alaw noticed, with a pang, that Ginny's brown eyes lingered on her Slytherin crest for a moment and resisted the temptation to cross her arms over it.

This was precisely the reason she had sown the crest onto her shirt in the first place. She would not be ashamed to be in Slytherin, no more than she would be ashamed to be muggle-born. The two were not mutually exclusive, and neither made her somehow less of a person. Ginny made no comment on her fashion choice and spoke in quite friendly terms to them.

"I'm starting Hogwarts this year," she said, as they all settled around the kitchen table and Mrs Weasley pointed her wand at the kettle to bring it to the boil. "So you'll be seeing a lot more of me. Do either of you play Quidditch? I'm going to try out for the Gryffindor team."

"Alaw has a thing about heights," Ron explained tactlessly. "And you haven't even been Sorted yet Gin! You don't know if you'll be in Gryffindor."

"Yeah, you might be another wild card like Al here," said Fred.

"I'm sure the Sorting Hat will take your choice into consideration," said Alaw, because Ginny was looking reproachfully at her brother. "It did for me, after all."

"What you asked to be – ?!" Ginny started in surprise but Mrs Weasley chose this moment to plonk mugs in front of everyone.

Alaw was glad. She supposed she should be used to people questioning her Sorting by now, but it was still a little tiresome. The old Pureblood families, in Slytherin and out, questioned how a muggle-born could have been Sorted into Salazar's house when he had hated them with a passion. Everyone else questioned how someone seemingly normal on the outside could be placed in the house that had produced more Dark Wizards than any other. The thing none of them could comprehend was that Alaw had asked to be put there. Her Sorting had been distinctly uncomfortable. The Hat had taken an excruciating five and half minutes to choose a house for her, making her a rare Hatstall.

Actually, it had determined that Slytherin would be perfect for her in about ten seconds, the rest of the time had been spent complained about her blood and dithering over the other three houses. It had been on the verge of placing her in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff when Alaw had asked if she could be in Slytherin, despite the rules. It was this request which had made the Hat take a closer look and somehow detect a glimmer of her Druid blood. It was this which had tipped the scale in her favour.

"We've made up Bill and Charlie's room for you girls," said Mrs Weasley, waking Alaw from her reverie. "They're both back in the country for the summer, but they're staying down in London because they still have work to do. I think they'll drop by tonight for dinner."

"I'll show you where you're staying," Ron offered and Alaw nodded, draining her cup and standing up. The Burrow felt somewhat like a warren to Alaw, none of the walls or doors were straight, it was as though they had grown out of the ground rather than being built that way. The stairs were tiny and rickety but they only had one floor to haul their bags up.

"Just chuck your stuff in there," said Ron carelessly, opening a door on the first landing and waving his hand inside.

It was a bright, tidy room with two twin beds and a window which overlooked the front yard. It had the slightly too neat feeling of a disused guest room. Bill and Charlie must have moved out of the family home some years previously. Ron next took them up to his room and as they passed a door with the sign 'Percival's Room, Please Knock', Hermione piped up,

"Where's Percy? He's not moved out has he?"

"No not yet," said Ron, rolling his eyes. "Though if dad didn't make him come home, I'm sure he'd set up camp in the office. He got a Ministry job see?"

"Wow," said Hermione, sounding impressed. "And him only just finished at Hogwarts. What's he doing?"

"Something in the Department of Magical Cooperation, making the tea for the big boss I reckon. Whatever you do, don't get him started on the subject."

Working the magical Foreign Office actually sounded fascinating to Alaw, but she knew Ron had never got on with Percy. Percy had always been quite decent to her, unperturbed by the dark reputation of her house, he had even turned a blind eye to her staying in Gryffindor tower from time to time. The three of them continued to climb until they reached the very top of the house where there was a single door on the landing leading to Ron's room.

It was about the same size as Bill and Charlie's room, but plastered from floor to ceiling with bright orange posters of Ron's Quidditch team. Hermione rolled her eyes at the waving players and picked her way over to the window through all the discarded clothes and sweet wrappers on the floor. She was still a little soggy from the London rain so she started absentmindedly squeezing the drops out of her hair. Ron flopped down onto the bed and indicated that the girls should make themselves at home. Alaw perched herself on the arm of the frayed sofa and fixed Ron with a beady look.

"Ron, what exactly have you told your mum and dad about what happened in May? You know Professor Dumbledore made me swear not to tell anyone about Voldemort."

Ron winced at the sound of the name.

"Do you think I'm thick? Of course I didn't tell them about – You-Know-Who. I did tell them all about the Dementor though, hard not to, with it all over the papers. Ministry have been going spare trying the find out who leaked the story."

Alaw, Ron and Hermione smirked conspiratorially at one another. In actual fact, it had been Alaw who had written anonymously to the Prophet and told them about the creature which had been terrorising and attacking students all year. The Ministry had forced her to sign a nondisclosure agreement but Alaw had got around the spell by misspelling her middle name. She had already been contacted by the Auror Office about the incident but she had maintained an air of baffled innocence. After all, how could a poor muggleborn be expected to understand how such things worked?

"Everyone went completely bonkers over that article," Ron continued. "So when we all got home, mum grilled us for information. I know the article didn't mention you Al, but somehow she'd got wind that you were involved so I had to tell her something. I stuck to the story you were telling everyone, how the Bloody Baron told you where to go and how you knocked out Quirrel and killed the Dementor. Mum was so impressed that she insisted I invite you both over right away."

"But you didn't tell her Voldemort was possessing Quirrel?" Alaw pressed anxiously. "Or how I survived because of my Druid protection?"

Ron shook his head firmly.

"Nope, not a word. Just your classic Defence Against the Dark Arts assistant gone round the twist."

Alaw snorted and Hermione gave a strange sort of sniff laugh. She glanced anxiously at Alaw whilst Ron was busy opening a Chocolate Frog box but Alaw tried to smile reassuringly at her. Hermione was obviously remembering how cut up Alaw had been over killing Professor Quirrel, but Alaw had now had time to adjust. She'd been attending church with her father over the holidays as usual, and she spent the time wondering if she should be feeling guilty over the death of her teacher. It was a tricky situation because she was certainly responsible for the spell which had made him crumble to ash, but then again she hadn't even known she could do such a thing, and Quirrel had been trying to strangle her at the time.

Oblivious to Alaw's musings, Ron swung himself off the bed and bit the head off his frog.

"Want to go and see my new broom?" he asked, clearly dying to show it to them. Alaw and Hermione dutifully followed him back downstairs and out into the garden.

The Weasleys kept their Quidditch equipment in a shed at the bottom of the yard, just past the chicken coop. Ron chattered about his broom the entire time it took him to untangle it from the rest.

"It's a Cleansweep 9!" he said ecstatically. "Which Broomstick says its way better than the old model. They've sorted out the drag problem with an anti-friction charm. I mean, it'll probably wear off but still!"

He then insisted on showing off his skills in the air and walked the girls over the small orchard the family owned. Hermione and Alaw smiled up encouragingly at him but rolled their eyes once his back was turned.

"Have you heard from Neville this summer?" Hermione asked and Alaw nodded, watching as Ron skimmed the top of the trees.

"Got a letter the other day, sounds like his aunt and uncle got into a row again. But apparently his Gran has been much better this holiday, less snappy was what he said."

"Yes, that's the impression I got too," Hermione mused. "He told me she was really pleased he got involved with the Dementor which sounds strange to me. My parents would have been appalled if they knew!"

The Grangers and the Jones' had no idea their daughters were witches, let alone caught up in dangerous conflicts. It was the law in Britain that the families of muggle-borns be confunded and obliviated to keep them ignorant of their offspring's abilities. Alaw supposed it was just easier that way and it wasn't too difficult to keep her parents out of the loop now that she spent most of the year at university. It would have been nearly impossible had she still been living at home.

"I'm thinking of trying out for Gryffindor," said Ron as he suddenly landed in front of them, spraying dirt everywhere. "The Keeper and the Seeker position are open now cause people have left."

Ron offered to let the girls try out his broom but they both swiftly declined. Neither of them were great flyers, and in fact Alaw had such a crippling fear of heights that when she had encountered a Boggart the previous Halloween, it had taken the form of a bottomless room, hundreds of feet in the air. The three walked back towards the Burrow and as they approached the house, they saw Fred and George standing with the backs to them, talking in low whispers. They didn't seem to hear them as they approached and Alaw distinctly heard Fred say,

"I'm telling you, we need a lot more Doxy eggs than that, not the mention all the other ingredients!"

"Ingredients for what?" asked Ron and the twins jumped.

"Potions homework," said Fred quickly.

"Since when have you two started doing Potions homework?" asked Ron sceptically and George raised an eyebrow.

"Are you suggesting that we have ever let our academics slip? You insult us."

They walked past Ron, Hermione and Alaw smirking and Ron snorted.

"Slip? Those two wouldn't care about exams if you paid them! That's why mum is so pissed off at them recently. They got their OWL results back the other day."

"Not good?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"Not good," said Ron firmly. "Plus, they've been up to something all summer, you know, taking quietly alone, sending secret letters, hiding stuff from mum."

"Oh I hope it's nothing illegal," Hermione groaned. "Doxy eggs are a class-c non-tradable material."

"You're starting to sound like Percy," Ron grumbled.

When the three of them re-entered the kitchen a minute later, they found it much fuller than it had been when they left. Though Fred and George seemed to have disappeared up to their room, Percy had arrived back from work and was talking a mile a minute about something his boss had said to him. He spared the girls a perfunctory 'hello' before launching right back into his speech. But there were two other people sat around the table whom Alaw didn't know. The pair were obviously Weasleys given that they had flame-red hair.

One was broad-shouldered and stocky, rather like the twins. He wore leathery robes and had a burn up the side of his face. The other was thinner and lankier, like Mr Weasley and Ron. The moment he smiled at Alaw she felt suddenly flushed and bubbly and she took his proffered hand eagerly.

"Hi Alaw," he said, still grinning. "I'm Bill."

So there you go. Please leave a review and tell me what you thought. Again if you've read this far, you're a star and I am extremely grateful. Things will obviously get more exciting in the next few chapters now that the recapping stuff is out of the way.