Heyyy! I'm baaack! A new chapter ALREADY! As always, I do not own Harry Potter and all the stuff related to it! I wish I did. ON WITH THE STORY

September 1st 1993

"Hermione, keep that ugly brute away from Scabbers, do you hear me? He's scaring him!" Ron Weasley shot her what was clearly a warning look, cradling his pocket where Scabbers was hiding from the ginger feline.

"Crookshanks is most certainly not an ugly brute Ronald! He just wants to play a bit." Hermione Granger shot back. Harry Potter sighed at the bickering of his friends, searching around for an empty compartment to sit in. He gazed sadly as the trolley lady passed them by, colorful sweets on display. He would have really enjoyed a chocolate frog or two right about then. He turned irritably back around to face his two best friends.

"Hey guys, could cut it out a bit, we aren't even there yet and you're already biting each others heads off!" That said, Harry turned around only to collide with a solid wall. Or rather a solid person. They both fell down onto the isle floor but the other figure quickly got up, brushed themselves off, and lent Harry a outstretched hand.

"I am so sorry! I wasn't looking at where I was going!" The other figure quickly pulled him up off the floor. Harry looked up to see a girl staring over worriedly at him.

She had long, thick, curly dark brown hair and storm cloud grey eyes. Her skin was relatively pale with freckles spread across the bridge of her nose and dotting her cheeks. But what struck Harry the most was how familiar she seemed to him.

"It's okay, I guess wasn't looking around that much either." He smiled and she smiled back before her mouth curved into a slight frown.

"Um... I don't suppose you've seen the Lady with the snack trolley by any chance have you?" She looked at him hopefully.

"Ya, she just passed by us before I ran into you, it went that way." Harry said, turning around and pointing over to the end of the hallway.

"Thanks!" She said before hurrying away from them, footsteps echoing down the hall as she vanished out of sight. Hermione and Ron, who had only just recently stopped fighting among themselves, joined Harry as the three third years watched her leave.

"Well that's strange. I've never seen her here before." Hermione stated, looking slightly puzzled as she pushed some bushy hair out of her face

"Well, maybe she's a first year." Ron suggested, looking, unlike Hermione, not in the least bit worried over the mystery girl.

"But she looks as old as us; maybe she's a transfer student?" Harry asked. Looking down the hall where they had last seen her.

"But Hogwarts never accepted any transfer student!" Hermione exclaimed.

"How would you know? You've only been a student for two years!" Argued Ron as the three went back to searching for an compartment.

"Stop it, both of you." Harry sighed, roughly pushing up his glasses that had slid down as they bickered. "Here, this is the emptiest compartment that we'll find by now. All the others will be filled." The compartment in question contained only one passenger, a man who seemed to be fast asleep in his seat, hat falling over his eyes and sporting very rugged looking black robes. His very presence was odd considering only students were supposed to ride on the Hogwarts Express.

"Who do you two think he is?" Ron asked.

"Professor R.J Lupin."

"How do you know?" Ron looked dumbfounded. "How come she knows everything?"

"It's written on his trunk, Ronald." She pointed over at the trunk in question.

"Oh." Hermione watched in satisfaction as Ron's ears turned a bright red.

"Do you think he's sleeping?" Harry asked, glancing over at the man.

"Probably. Looks like it at least." Hermione said, looking over as well.

Ron shook his head. "Raggiest looking bloke I've ever seen."

"Good, 'cause I've got something to tell you." Harry said closing the compartment door.

"–So you're saying Black's after you?" Ron asked, dumbfounded.

"Yeah, after what your father told me, I'm pretty sure." Harry said.

"Well, I hope he won't get to you." Hermione said.

"Are you nuts? Of course he won't get to him! Hogwarts's like, the safest place in the world!" Ron almost screamed. Hermione was about to respond when the door suddenly opened. All three recognized the girl from the hallway, but she apparently didn't noticed them. She closed the compartment door with her foot, arms were full of chocolate frogs.

"Alright you chocolate addict, I got ALL of your sweets so– Oh." She said, noticing them for the first time. They all stared at each other.

"Hi." The girl finally said.

"Hi." They chorused.

"Uh... I was um... Sitting here so..." She started. Looking extremely uncomfortable.

"Oh! We're so sorry! We didn't know! We thought this was a free compartment." Hermione said.

"We'll, I don't mind sharing with you guys." She sat down in front of the sleeping man and sighed as she looked at him before muttered something that Harry couldn't catch. From the looks on Hermione and Ron's faces, neither did they.

"I'm Hermione. This is Harry and this is Ronald." Hermione said trying to start a conversation.

"Actually, it's Ron." He said this half-heartedly, as if he had had this conversation before.

"I'm Alissa." She smiled and they all shook hands. There was an awkward pause, each trying to decide what to say next.

"Um, nice shirt." Ron said bluntly, obviously trying to break the tension. Harry looked over at it. It was a plain white T-shirt with the word Brat written on it. Ron was right, it did look nice on her.

"Thank you, this man over there actually gave it to me." She pointed to the sleeping figure in front of her.

"Is he related to you?" Harry asked, speaking up for the first time since Alissa had walked in.

"No. He sort of my guardian or something. When I wasn't staying over with my grandparents, I would go over with him instead." Harry understood exactly what she was getting at. Her parents couldn't take care of her either. Hermione gave her a friendly smile but Ron just looked lost.

"Why aren't you with your parents?"

"Ron!" Hermione gasped.

"It's fine." Alissa smiled. "My mother passed away when I was just a baby and my father can't take care of me right now." They all stayed silent. That is, until Hermione spoke up.

"Your accent's a bit different. Where are you from?"

"Oh, well you see, I was born here in Britain but then I went to live with my grandparents in Russia, after that I went to Beauxbatons in France but I would always come spend my summers back here in Great Britain. Then I decided to come here for the rest of my schooling. I guess that my accent is a mix of French, Russian and English." As she spoke, Harry started to notice her accent as well.

"What year are you going to be in?" Hermione said.

"Third year."

"Oh us too! I hope you'll be in Gryffindor! I could use more company in the dorm! Lavender and Parvati aren't really the most friendly of girls." Hermione's eyes were shining with hope. Alissa just smiled, but it didn't quite reached her eyes. Instead it looked a bit forced. Out of nowhere the train jerked back and everything went dark.

"We can't be there already!" Hermione said.

"It looks like their letting someone on the train." Alissa whispered. The train jerked back again.

"Bloody Hell! What's happening to this thing!" Ron yelled, way louder then what was needed at the moment.

There was a pause before the compartment door slowly begain to slide open, all on its own. A tall hooded figured appeared at the entrance to the compartment. It was wearing it's hood over its face so only it's mouth could be seen, that is if you could actually call it a mouth, it seemed like more a black hole, letting out a strange breathing sound at every breath it took. Everyone stiffened at it glided towards Harry.

It made a strange gasping sound as the creature slowly began to suck something in from the air around it and a object coming from Harry was sucked into it's gapping mouth.

The last thing that he remembered before blacking out was the sound of screaming, a woman screaming.

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This chapter has been re-edited. Hoho.

GailyGail