Anti-Christ

By Raining Dreams

She's back: After like, a year. Yeah. Last school year was... bad. I had no friends at school until halfway through the second semester, and my best friend and I were fighting, and I was overworked and underappreciated and... bah ; Well. It sucked. Bad. But I'm back. And I bring tidings of 90's/ Vanessa Carlton/ Japanese/ Killers music, tea, and Harry Potter fanfiction! I've been playing with this idea for a while. For the record: Some of the people in this are based on real people (-cough-KennyandKatie-cough-) and while I used their same first names and some of their physical features, they don't act much like they're nice, cool real-life counterparts. And yes, I know a good part of this fic goes against HBP a bit, but y'know... Bite me. That book was ucky compared to the others, so we're going to bend the rules a bit.

Like I ever follow the rules anyways. Anywho. Review or I'll hate you all forever.

Oh yes. This chapter goes out to Tom Lehrer, for his The Elements song, which helped me study my elements for Chemistry WHILE writing this... and for his just being an all out COOL guy. Love him. Adore him. Send him cookies.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. And I won't own it until I find a time machine and go back to the day when JK started writing in the cafe and, y'know, steal it from her and stuff. Or travel to her death and have her give me all the rights in her will. One of the two.

Chapter One:

The Others

Turmoil. It was simply the only word for the Wizarding World at the moment. People were dying left and right, and while the new minister was much better than Fudge, he was doing an absolutely miserable job. Even the muggles were starting to get fidgety and fight amongst themselves. In all the chaos, all the smaller wizarding schools had closed; Only Hogwarts and Beauxbatons were left open in Europe; Durmstrang had been totally destroyed by Death Eaters over the summer holiday. There was still a school open in the Americas, one in Asia, and one in Australia. Most families had elected to keep their children home with them in such troubled times, but a few families were still bold enough to send their children to school. These few were accepted at the school in their regions, set by the Ministry.

Hogwarts had gotten thirteen new students, who had been placed into a house all their own. Their dorm had been made of a few old, large classrooms merged together. They had no official house animal, colors, Quidditch team, or even a house name. They were simply referred to by the majority of the student and teacher population as "the Others". They were clad in the normal uniform, with the exception of patches, ties, sweaters, and other things that would have house colors. Instead, they wore what incoming First-years wore; A black silk tie with the Hogwarts emblem, black scarves, plain sweaters, etc. These children were placed in classes where they could be fitted in, mixing them with the four other houses.

Sadly, most of these children gravitated towards Slytherin. Many had been attending small schools scattered throughout England and Ireland, but a few had been home schooled. Thankfully, six of the thirteen hovered towards the other three houses. Well. Except for one girl by the name of Violet. She didn't seem to have much of a house preference, and typically just kept to herself.

Violet was the least interesting of the Others, however. There was Kenny and Katie, a pair of twins who had become Harry's official stalkers. There was Daire, an Irish boy who hung around the Ravenclaws and had caputred the hearts of many a girl for his "suaveness". And there was Nola, a very stuck up would-be Slytherin girl who was extremely fond of tossing her hair to get attention. These were only a few among other equally strange and unusual children who walked around the school like shadows in their dark uniforms...

"Harry. HARRY." Hermione said, jostling Harry out of his half-sleep before he fell face-first into his eggs. He blinked furiously, groaning loudly and swatting her hand out of the way. She scoffed. "You're welcome." she said somewhat bitterly.

"Mmrf. Thanks, 'Mione..." he muttered, rubbing his eyes and shoving his hair from his face. He hadn't been sleeping well as of late, and it wouldn't have been the first time he fell asleep into his breakfast. Ron looked tired as well, but he was staying awake by occupying himself with sips of coffee every two seconds. He was on his third cup now, and Hermione could have sworn his eye was twitching a bit. The second-youngest Weasley looked up and winced, breaking out of his caffeine-induced stupor.

"Oh no... Harry. Hide. They're coming this way." Ron whispered. Hermione glanced up and let out a small, involuntary yelp of shock.

"They normally don't come over until at least eight!" Hermione hissed, consulting her wristwatch.

"Hullo Harry!" the twins chorused in unison. Too late. Harry had been getting ready to hide under the table. He sighed, chasing his hashbrowns around the plate with his fork.

"Hullo Kaite, Kenny." he murmured. The two looked excitedly towards one another. While Kenny and Katie were twins, they didn't look exactly alike. Other than being different genders, Kenny's nose was a touch different and he was a quarter inch or so taller than his sister. The twins slid in next to Harry, both beaming.

"How are you, Harry?" Katie chimed. "You look a bit sleepy. Did you not sleep well?"

"Well of COURSE he didn't sleep well, Kate!" Kenny said with a roll of his eyes. "He's HARRY POTTER. And You-Know-Who's out traipsing about!" He let out a loud 'pfft'.

Katie looked a bit downtrodden at this. "Well... Anyways, Harry," her cheer returned quite quickly. "My brother and I are throwing a birthday party for ourselves! We heard your birthday's late July and we wanted to know if you wanted to split it!"

"Erm..." Harry looked up, looking desperately to his friends for help. "I...er..."
"Mum already threw him a party!" Ron said abruptly.

"Yes!" Agreed Hermione quickly. "I helped Mrs. Weasley bake a cake for him! It was chocolate!"
"With green lettering!" Ron added. Hermione fought hard to give him one of her, '...what was THAT?' looks. It seemed to have done the trick, however, because the twins looked extremely saddened. They paused, before Kenny seemed to get an idea, his smile returning.

"Well, you can have another with us, then! You can never have too many parties!" Katie caught on and smiled as well.

"We'll talk to you later about the date! See you!" They both got up and rushed down the table to Annabell and Daire, two fellow Others, and began to chatter excitedly, causing both to look down the table at Harry, who had pretended to take interest in his bacon. Harry looked up once he was sure they weren't looking any more.

"How do they DO that?" he inquired. "Really! I mean, anything I SAY..."

"They're twins. Fred and George did it all the time." said Ron wisely. Hermione frowned, reaching out and patting Harry's hand.

"Don't worry. Birthday parties aren't so bad."

"But I don't WANT to go, Hermione. I don't WANT people gawking at me all night..." Harry groaned, before heaving a sigh.

"Play sick." came a voice from down the table. All three glanced over to see Violet Lamodherm, yet another Other girl. Apparently she'd been sitting there long enough to hear the whole thing.

"They'll reschedule." Harry said.

Violet shrugged. "Tell them to have it without you. You look all noble and don't have to go." The girl tossed a wavy dark lock over her shoulder. She always had her hair tied back into a pollyanna, secured with a ribbon. Today's was a very dark green. Harry paused, contemplating this, before deeming it was a possibility. He offered the Other girl a small smile.

"Thanks." he muttered.

"You're welcome." Violet said, before returning to her tea and bagel. Not all Others were bad, Harry decided. Of course, this revelation came at exactly the wrong time, because he chose to look up just as a few Other, would-be Slytherins, lead by bratty Nola and a boy named Dacian, were currently transfiguring spare parchment into rough busts of Harry's head before setting them on fire.

He took another bite of his hashbrowns, which were now cold. It was going to be a very, very long year. Especially seeing as they'd only been in school for fifteen days.

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Bah: Well. That wasn't nearly as long/good as I was hoping for. Oh well... It's mostly because school has me just a SMIDGE stressed right now (I just HAD to take the college course, didn't I?)... but things should get better real soon, so long as you people REVIEW. My skating rink re-opened a whole month early, and I get to go skate tonight... In my absense, I took up figure skating, y'see, which totally rocks my toe-socks. Yay for skating!