Harry Potter is the creation of J.K. Rowling. The following story takes place in that universe, but is not a Harry story. It is intended to be like I Jedi. A novel by Michael A. Stackpole that takes place in the Star Wars universe at the same time as the Jedi Academy Trilogy, but is about a character on their own journey through events in that time line. Not really about the main characters at all. The minor characters in the Harry Potter universe can make a major part in my story. I would also like to point out that though a major part of this story will take place at Hogwarts, it will incorporate other parts of the magical world. I am an American and the magical world of J.K. Rowling exists here too. There are creatures and legends and magical peoples that she has left untapped. Things that are rich additions to possibility when you only imagine. Just thought I'd warn you that if you can't open your mind to that you should not read further.

Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Jeppesen-Huff

PS-

I am looking for residents of Great Britten who are willing to politely correct my grammar and dialect usage.

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I WITCH: A HOGWARTS TALE

by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff

Chapter One: An Old Promise Comes to Call

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Ann held a newspaper over her head as the rain poured down. It had soaked through her coat and likely through the few things in her back pack. Her mind was still in a fog from the lack of her Tarazadone. She had taken her last dose two nights before, and was past fit to be tied as her hands shook more from the withdrawals than from the cold. The drugs had been a part of her life since before puberty.

When they faded from her system she saw things that the doctors had convinced her were not real. The things that Aunt Star had told her stories about when she was little. Up until the day that her father had cast Aunt Star and Uncle Peter from the Begay home in Chelsea. It was only a few months after that when Ann had seen the first doctors.

Ann Begay was twenty-three years old as years are counted, but in some ways she was much older, and in others she was still only a little girl and would always remain so. She was alone in the world and broke. Her parents, both scientists, had died in a plane crash when she was still in her early teens. They had made her a ward of the crown until she came of age, but since then she had been more or less on her own. Committed from time to time to different institutions, and then left to her own devices when they declared her no longer a danger to herself once more.

She'd lost her last job at a health food store a month ago when she wouldn't sell the latest weight loss supplement to a girl that couldn't have even been full healthy weight to begin with. When she couldn't find another job in time to make the rent, she was out on her ear.

When she ran out of her medications the nightmares would come, and then she would find herself either back in a mental ward, or she would die on the street unnoticed. No one would care about the loss of a mental patient with no family and no income. In all her life, though she had hit low before; she had never come so close to rock bottom as she was now.

She had scraggly light red-brown hair in an uneven razor cut that had been near militarily close to the scalp, but had been aloud to grow down past her ears. Her eyes were dark, and haunted. Her cloths were soaked thrift shop special. Her back pack held only a little food a few personal items, and the empty prescription bottles.

The alley she walked in now was dark, and she was staggered by a heavy coughing fit. There was an empty crate in front of a doorway. Turned on it's side it might give her some shelter from the rain. She heaved it over and crawled inside to wait out the night and the rain.

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Ann was jolted from her nightmare by the a loud knocking on the side of her make shift shelter. "Get out of there you bloody squib." a dirty man yelled at her. She could see a darkness around the man and he reached in to grab her. She bit his hand and came barreling out of the crate at him.

"You won't touch me." she yelled back as she grabbed her back pack from the ground and started running. In her haste she ran into a rather large bearded man. She twisted around in his massive hand and tried to force herself to calm. "Kochakocha, kocha!" she said and she thought to herself I am not here, this is not real.

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Rubeus Hagrid had been shopping in Diagon Alley with Professor McGonagall when he caught site of a scuffle in Knockturn Alley. One of the shop keepers was reaching into a crate in front of his shop when a young woman bit his hand and came barreling out of it. She yelled something at the shopkeeper and grabbed up a small pack, then ran straight into Hagrid.

He tried to stop her and ask if she was okay, but she just yelled out "Kocha, kocha, kocha!" then disappeared. He could still feel her struggling in his hand, but he couldn't see her.

Professor Minerva McGonagall Could see Hagrid struggling with thin air where a girl had been, and she thought very had heard the girl say. "Star!" she said as the memory came back. She hurried over and managed to take hold of the girl as she became visible again.

McGonagall looked the girl in the eye and she was certain, even though she had not seen her since she was seven years old. She took the girl into her embrace, "Ann Begay, I thought you would never be found."

Ann struggled to free herself from the woman's arms. She had met this woman before. "You aren't real!" she said as she fell to the ground. "You're just one of Aunt Star's stories."

McGonagall knelt to Ann's side, "Your Aunt Star never lied to you Ann."

Ann did not believe her, and she felt ill. What little she had manage to eat the night before began to come back up. She retched into a puddle, and lost it all. She felt very dizzy and she felt the large man's hands claim her again as she lost consciousness.

"I need you to go back to Hogwarts and fetch Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape." said McGonagall to Hagrid. "Just as soon as we have her into a room at the Leaky Cauldron."

" 'ho is she Professor?" Hagrid asked

"The Muggle born Niece of Star Lamont." said McGonagall.

"She was one of the bravest back in the day." Hagrid said with hushed reverence at the memory.

"Yes Hagrid."

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Severus Snape was a disagreeable fellow who took his position and his potions seriously to the exstream. He looked at the woman in the bed with both dread, and hope. "Muggles and their pills are insane." he said as he looked up to McGonagall. "You are certain she is Ann Begay?"

McGonagall handed him the pill bottles that had been in Ann's pack. "Her Identification Card, the labels on the bottles, and the scar just below her collar bone." she shook her head in the affirmative. "She also pulled off a spell I've only ever seen Star use, without the aide of a wand."

Dumbledore held up the necklace that had been taken from Ann's neck. "Jackalope Antler." he said. "Star brought some back with her after taking a trip to America."

Snape shook his head in disbelief. "She'd had a wand made of it."

"A wand she'd intended for Ann." said McGonagall. "It's still in the vault a Gringotts."

Snape looked again at the bottles. "These things were poisoning her, and she won't recover from their use very easily."

"Is there anything you can do to help her until we can get her to Hogwarts?" Dumbledore asked.

"There is a potion I can make that will calm her enough to travel, and with Madam Pomfrey's help she can be made healthy of body, but I can assure nothing of her mind."

"That is a bridge we'll have to cross when we come to it Severus." said Dumbledore. "We made a promise to Star that we would find her, and train her."

"And how exactly do you propose to train a grown woman at a children's school?" asked Snape, with more bite than he intended.

"By making her a child, of course." replied the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Snape took a piece of parchment from the bag he had brought with him. "I will need someone to fetch some things from the stores in the alley for me." he began to write a list.

"I'll fetch them, and some proper cloths for her." said McGonagall as she took the finished list.

Dumbledore took up his cloak from the chair by the door. "I will go ahead to Hogwarts, and inform Madam Pomfrey of the situation." He turned for the door. "It is very fortunate that Miss Begay was found after the students had been sent home for the Summer."

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Once Snape was alone in the room with Ann he heard her shift in the bed and cough as she had so many times since his arrival. For a moment he feared she would wake up before he had the potion ready, but he heard her whimpering and realized she was only having a bad dream. How many bad dreams had those quack Muggle doctors foisted upon the girl? When she settled again he found himself next to her, holding her hand.

Not everyone knew what Star Lamont had meant to Snape. She had been kind to him in his years as a student. He had even had a crush on her in school, but he'd never had the courage to act on his crush.

She was a dark skinned beauty of an old wizard family. She was a Ravenclaw who had been a beater for her house Quidditch team. That was why she had been a sort of a legend at the school.

He'd felt hurt when she married a Squib. Though when Voldemort had killed Peter Lamont to spite Star it had hurt Snape as well. It was two years after Voldemort had been defeated that Star had died in his arms. She'd been killed by one of The Dark Lord's last loyal followers that had tailed her to a meeting of some members of the Order Of The Phoenix. It was there that Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape had promised to find her niece and see that she was trained.

Star had been banned from the girls life when she was still small, but before her husband had died he had learned that his sister and brother in law were dead, and their niece Star had been made a ward of the Crown. At the time of Star's death the girl had been lost in Muggle bureaucracy. Institutionalized as a schizophrenic.

Now here she was ten years later. Not even a foot away from him, and he could make the promise right. Snape did not always like the Headmaster's plans, but for Star he would see this one through.

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