Author's note: Hello and thank you for reading my little story! I hope you will enjoy. I am looking forward to receiving reviews, just so you know; and yes, that was a hint. Also, please tell me if there's anything you don't understand and you think I should have included.

Also, I do not own Harry Potter. I only own my OC. Basically, anything you can recognize I don't own.

Now, on with the reading, and have a good time! Don't forget to leave a word, yes?

Without doubt, being a child of mixed heritage sometimes takes a strange course of faith.

Russian born and bred Ruslan Lebedev was a strange and peculiar man, whose great stature and permanent frown always put the fear of God into those around him – especially those working under him. Ministry business was not for the faint of heart, he thought, even though more and more wimps seemed to catch Ministry jobs.

When he met Adeline Dubois, a young French witch that seemed to come from an entirely different planet than his, everyone thought the pair would end up killing each other over their petty disagreements. You can imagine the state of shock everyone was left in after he married said French witch in 1975, three years later welcoming a blonde little bundle of joy into the family, whom they named Aleksandra ("After my great babushka!", Ruslan would say affectionately, while his wife preferred to claim it came after some great Russian empress).

When the time came and I was soon to turn eleven, you can be sure as hell my father tried his best to persuade my mother into sending me off to Durmstrang Institute. My mother would not hear anything about it, of course – it was too far away, the weather was terrible and she would never allow such tolerance of the Dark Arts into her daughter's life. She was more into the idea of sending her daughter to get schooled in a much friendlier, warmer, and… more elegant environment; one that she had attended as well; Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.

As soon as he heard about it, the man threw a fit; his girl? In a stuck-up, fancy, good-for-nothing school? What had she to learn from the French? How to smile pretty and become a wonderful, dim-witted trophy wife? Over his dead body!

Needless to say, my parents fought over this matter for half a year! Father hated the way Mother spoke of Durmstrang, and Mother hated the way Father spoke of Beauxbatons. Without even noticing, every little insult thrown into the schools' direction, was an insult thrown into each other's faces.

I wasn't fond of neither of two evils, to be completely honest – while Durmstrang was cold and vapid, Beauxbatons seemed cold as well, but in a completely different way and more Milquetoast than my poor adventurous heart could bear.

All was changed on my eleventh birthday. While celebrating with my parents, we received a rather peculiar owl that came barging in directly through our chimney – thankfully, it was summertime and even though the weather in Russia was not like the hot, humid weather my Mother was accustomed to, she did not feel the need to start up a fire that day. Otherwise, I'm sure that odd duck they called owl would've been flying her way straight to my Father's tummy. After reading said message, my parents felt relieved: finally, a solution! I didn't have to attend neither Durmstrang, nor Beauxbatons! They had forgotten all about Hogwarts. Sure, the weather was still terrible and sure, perhaps it was still a bit too fancy for my Father's tastes, but in the end, they knew it was the perfect (and only) choice.

And so, they wrote back immediately, stating that I will indeed be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with the beginning of the school year. I was beyond excited, my parents were completely ecstatic, and peace had finally come into the Lebedev household.

As the end of the summer approached, we were all getting a little anxious and myself maybe even scared. Of course, all those feelings were forgotten as soon as we stepped foot on Diagon Alley, albeit perhaps due to different reasons.

"Vat is dis? I feel like a sewer rat."

"Mon Dieu, Ruslan! Zis are not ze kind of words to say when so many people could 'ear! Hold my 'and, sweetie; getting lost in such a place would be a terrible misadventure."

I was astounded, to say the least. It was the most magical place I had ever seen in my life, as crowded and maybe dirty as it felt. There were witches and wizards everywhere, dressed in the brightest of colors, or wearing only black, there were colorful shops and I swear I saw an ice-cream parlour only a few steps down the alley. This was indeed my place.

Unfortunately for my restless spirit of adventure, living in Russia was never entirely magical. Apart from the magic my parents spoke of and used at home, our home was at least a hundred kilometers away from the nearest wizard household, and almost always enveloped in snow so thick you couldn't move two meters in the winter without a mouthful of the icy phenomenon, which made wizard-to-wizard interaction very scarce.

I was soon startled out of my thoughts by my protective mother.

"Look zere! Ollivander's wand shop! Zis is ze first stop, ma cherie!"

In a matter of moments I had figured out why that was our first stop - I was getting my first, and hopefully only wand.

Ollivander's was a rather stuffy place; the kind of chamber that hadn't seen an open window in decades. However, the kind-looking man behind the counter soon made me forget how difficult I found breathing to be – although it's safe to say he did look to be a bit wacky himself.

I knew that it is not the wizards that chooses the wand, but the wand that chooses the wizard. But even though I already knew that, I don't know why, I was afraid of being chosen by a wand I deemed inferior or especially ugly. I was incredibly terrified of short wands, as my Father always said that short wands choose favor witches and wizards who lack in personality. And since I knew most wands vary in length from around 9 inches to 14, I thought that anything above 12 inches will do.

Despite my initial fears and uncertainties, between my wand and I it was something that people call "love at first sight": 12 ¾ inches, elm and Phoenix feather core. I was so taken with it, especially since there were more than seven wands that had previously rejected me. The old wand-maker said that must have been because of my flabbergasting personality; however, I knew better: when he saw the dejected and worried look in my eyes, he simply couldn't bear to let me down. Indeed, there were thousands of questions that raced through my mind at that time: "What if no wand chooses me?", "What if I'm not a witch?", "What if I'm actually a Squib?" The shame would've been impossible to live with. Those thoughts seemed so ridiculous after my wand chose me – how could I have been a Squib when I had annoyed my Mother with little magic tricks ever since I turned three?

Needless to say, after we left Ollivander's my parents were gloating! They were so proud of my first wand, it looked as though they were even more excited than I was!

"My little girl! She has a vond all to herself! Wait until my colleagues hear about dis, dorogoya."

"Oui! Our little girl 'as grown up so fast!"

It wasn't long before all my first-year necessities were taken care of exactly by the book: new black robes, protective gloves, winter cloak, and every course book I may need and not only. My parents had spared no expenses to make sure I had what I needed and only the best of it! I was after all, their only child and the apple of their eyes.

After our lovely encounter with Diagon Alley, summer passed quite slowly. Too slowly for my liking. I was beginning to get nervous, anxious and the day I was supposed to board the Hogwarts Express, I was downright nauseous. My parents were feeling even more worried than I was, if possible. They didn't know much of Hogwarts, nobody in my family did. I came from a long line of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang alumni, after all, and I had never met anyone who even saw Hogwarts, let alone step foot in it. My parents tried their best to learn as much as they could; mom even took to reading "Hogwarts, A History", but she quickly abandoned said book on her nightstand, never to be opened again. If she couldn't read a book in one sitting, she would not read it at all. Or at least, that's what I had gathered about her. My father, on the other hand, took to the more practical ways: asking colleagues and friends, anyone who could possibly know anything. Living in Russia, there weren't many people to ask apart from his work colleagues and therefore, he only found out a couple of things: that Hogwarts students were sorted into one of four houses as soon as they stepped foot into the school (out of the stories I had heard, I took a liking to Ravenclaw most), that it was the safest place on earth (a thought that made my mother rejoice) and that the headmaster was a bit of a loony ("Nobody likes a gossip, Popov!"). But in my opinion, only the best people were.

"Goodbye, ma cherie! I will miss you terribly – and behave! And make lots of friends to bring over for Christmas! And don't eat anything you don't like! And – "

"Milaya, I fink Sasha will find her way into da school on her own."

"Oh, nonsense! Aleksandra, put zat owl to use and write weekly, or at least every fortnight!"

And with those final words, the train whistled once and every student on the 9 ¾ platform scurried around, saying their final goodbyes and hurriedly hopped on, looking for a compartment.

Finding a compartment had proven to be a rather difficult task. The first compartments were filled with older students which seemed less than content to share their seats with a strange little girl with a funny accent, and the fact that I had to walk for at least five minutes until I finally found an empty compartment wasn't exactly great: there was little to no walking space outside in the long hallway, and my only chance of actually getting through was if I held my trunk in one hand, and balanced my owl's cage on my head with the other hand. Now that I think about it, it was quite a funny sight.

As soon as I settled into the empty compartment, it started filling up with people. At first there were three girls: Katie, Alicia and Angelina, all of whom seemed really nice and talkative, even though it was brazenly obvious they were also incredibly nervous and trembling with excitement.

Not long after the girls made their entrance, they were followed by three boys our age, two of whom were twins, had fiery, vivid red hair and freckled faces, and the other was a shorter boy with an interesting hairstyle choice that I didn't see very often at home. They introduced themselves as Fred, George and Lee, and just like that, our compartment became rather stuffy and crowded. Not that any of us minded.

During our long journey to Hogwarts, all of us became fast friends. I especially took a liking to Katie and the twins; Katie and I seemed to have a lot in common, and even though the twins and I were pretty much different in almost every way, they were such a laugh to be around, it was impossible not to like them.

We chattered for a couple of hours, probably sounding like a deranged bunch of chicken, but soon enough came the question we were all wondering about. Just as we were approaching, we were instructed by a Prefect boy to change into our robes. Afterwards, back in the tiny settlement, Angelina broke the thick silence.

"What house do you reckon you'll get into?"

The twins started boasting about Gryffindor – their whole family has been into Gryffindor, of course! How could they break the tradition? Lee wanted to follow them into the house of the "brave of heart", and while they were so sure of themselves, myself and the girls had quite a rough time actually deciding on which house we thought was best for us.

There was only one thing we knew, something that the twins made very clear:

"It doesn't really matter much which house you get into, alright – "

"As long as it's not Slytherin. Never Slytherin."

"They're a bunch of sniveling gits, they are – "

"Treacherous, snotty, brats!"

After that motivational speech, you must imagine how elated we were to see how one after another we were all sorted into Gryffindor. Katie was the first to be sorted, Angelina came second, Lee and Alicia, myself following close behind with the twins. Also, our happiness grew even bigger when we realized that we girls were assigned the same dorm room.

That night's sleep was especially fulfilling.

Author's note:

Mon Dieu! - My God! (French)

ma cherie - my dear (French)

dorogoya - dearest (Russian)

milaya - darling (Russian)

Sasha - Russian diminutive for Aleksandra