A/N: Thnx all so much for reading! I really really appreciate it! Please review or I'll be sad :( This chptr is dedicated to my partner in crime and the best writer evah, Liny.

Disclaimer: I wish it was mine lots. But Emeraude is my character, not JKRs.

Chapter One: The Reckoning

It is cold and dark. She can feel the wind whipping around her, freezing her bones. She is all alone. There is a sharp noise that pierced the silence. Footsteps.

"Is that you?" Godric's husky voice.

"Yes." She shivers. He appears concerned though not enough to help her.

"We have to do this. You're ruining the plans, ruining our futures, ruining everything. Salazar and I can't keep being strung along like this."

She cries, voice harsh and broken. "No! Don't do this to me. I'll leave Hogwarts."

"I'm sorry. We just can't trust you anymore." He lifts her up. She is light, feather-like. "You won't remember anything. However, whatever happens, remember this." His lips touch hers and she is on fire, burning and soaring above the grounds.

"I love you," she murmurs.

"Yes," says Godric wryly. "That's what you told Salazar." He pulls out his wand and everything goes black.

Emeraude Topaz Alluvendi woke up gasping for breath. The clock on her bedside table said 7.00am. She got up, making sure not to wake her cat, Moonlight, who was dozing on the end of her bed, and looked into the mirror.

Her dark red hair was, as usual, sleek, glossy and bouncing around her shoulders – even though it was early in the morning. Emerald green eyes peered into the mirror out of her ivory-skinned face and the tips of her shoulders poked out of her off-the-shoulder pyjama top.

She padded downstairs. "Good morning darling." Her adoptive mother, the only mother Emeraude had ever known.

"Good morning Mum," Emeraude replied. Her accent was strange amongst the New Zealanders. It was an odd mix of French, New Zealand, British and a little Hungarian that no one could imitate. She didn't know how she had gotten it but it gave her an air of mystery that she quite enjoyed.

"Excited about flooing to London?" Her adoptive mother asked. Emeraude, who was the brightest witch in her year at Aotea College of Magic, had been granted a scholarship to attend Hogwarts, one of the most prestigious magic schools in the world.

"Oh yes!" Emeraude cried. "It's going to be so exciting!"

It took no time for her to pack her trunks and before she knew it she was kissing her adoptive mother, father and two sisters (Tanya and Alicia) goodbye and wiping the soot off her robes as she stepped into Wizarding London, Platform 9 and ¾.

She walked almost straight into a boy with ice blond hair and eyes that were twice as cold. "Watch it!" He yelled. His accent was very British and very upper-class.

"I'm sorry," Emeraude said. "I didn't see you."

"That's alright," he replied. "Are you new?"

"Yes, I'm on exchange from New Zealand. I'm Emeraude Topaz Alluvendi."

"Oi, pratboy," a skinny guy with with glasses and messy hair yelled. "Who are you talking to?"

Emeraude walked up to him coldly. "My name is Emeraude."

The boy's face broke into a grin. "You're Ginny and Ron's exchange student! I'm Harry Potter! I'll take you to meet them."

"See you later, Mudblood lover," the blond boy drawled, and stalked off to terrorise first years or whatever it was that evil blond boys did.

"Don't worry about him. He's dirt," Harry said. Emeraude smiled. She hadn't even found out the boy's name.

"Harry!" A redhead girl who looked a lot like Emeraude herself replied. "Who's this?" She asked curiously.

"I'm Emeraude Topaz Alluvendi," Emeraude said, extending her hand. "You must be Ginny."

Ginny squealed. "Oooh, you're my host sister! Welcome. This is Ron, your host brother," she said, gesturing to the tall silent boy behind her. "Come, get on the train with us."

Harry was looking curiously from one to the other. "You two look awfully alike."

"Weird isn't it?" Ginny replied, batting her eyelashes at Harry.

The train ride was spent playing exploding snap and eating Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans. Emeraude had a knack for picking out the good ones.

"Hermione's head girl," Ron explained, "So she won't be joining us."

"Yeah," Harry said bitterly. "She'll be off with Draco."

"Harry, you know she's just as mad about that as you," Ginny said, rolling her eyes towards Emeraude.

"Oui, je sais," Emeraude replied without thinking.

"Huh?" Ron looked confused. As did the others.

"Sorry, I randomly burst into French," Emeraude explained. "I speak so many languages. It's hard keeping track of them all."

The train pulled into Hogsmeade and the group got off. "I have to find Hagrid," Emeraude said. "I'm being sorted with the first years."

"'Kay," Ginny replied. "See ya at the Gryffindor table!"

It wasn't hard for Emeraude to find Hagrid. He stood at least three feet above the tallest Hogwarts students. "'Ello Emeraude," he said, beaming down at her. "Ready to be sorted?"

"Oooh, yes," she replied excitedly and boarded one of the boats that took her to Hogwarts castle, along with the first years.

Hogwarts was beautiful and Emeraude was lost for words as they walked into the Great Hall. They had been told about the sorting and what it entailed by a very stern-looking teacher. She was to be the last to be sorted because of her age.

She stood and waited nervously. Which house would she be sorted into? She was brave so perhaps she'd be a Gryffindor. But maybe a Slytherin because of how cunning she was. She had come on this exchange because she was intelligent, so perhaps she'd be in Ravenclaw.

Finally McGonagal called, "Alluvendi, Emeraude Topaz."

She placed the hat nervously on her head and tried not to jump when it spoke to her. "Aha, you're very brave. But there is also ambition amongst that bravery. And incredible intelligence. But where to put you?"

Emeraude was a bundle of nerves at this point.

Then, the hat made an odd gasping noise. "What's this?"

Emeraude could feel her whole body tensing.

The hat sighed. "Ah well, better be ALLUVENDI!"

Emeraude felt the deathly silence of the hall. Pulling the hat off, she looked around and saw a blond boy standing nearby.

"Salazar?" she asked.

And fainted.

A/N: Bwahaha, evil cliffie.