"~Parseltongue~"


The following morning an owl arrived at the Evans home, carrying a letter from Dumbledore saying he would like to meet with me before accepting me at Hogwarts. He said the letter was also a Portkey that would activate at 12 o'clock exactly.

Putting on a pair of formal robes and strapping my book bag over my shoulder I held the letter and waited for 12 o'clock to roll by. Mrs. Evans kept worrying over me and asked several times if I wanted her to come with, and each time she asked I said no.

Right before the portkey activated the Evans' agreed to meet with me at the Leaky Cauldron.

A sudden yanking feeling from behind my nasal seemed to pull me from where I was standing in the living room. I felt distorted as colors whipped passed me.

Everything suddenly stopped and I found myself stumbling in front of the Hogwarts gates. When I steadied myself I found a familiar figure in flamboyant orange robes standing just inside the gates.

Staring at me with twinkling blue orbs behind half moon spectacles Dukbkedore greeted me, "You must be Miss Danielle Morrickson! If you could please follow me inside we may talk in my office."

The gates swung open and I followed behind Dumbledore up the oath towards the front entrance doors. He led me through the doors and up to the second floor where the gargoyle statue leading up to the headmasters office was located.

Dumbledore spoke what I assumed was the password, "Cockroach Clusters" and we followed the staircase up where Dumbledore opened the door to what used to be headmaster Dippets office.

Walking inside I could immediately see the difference between their offices. While Dippet kept his more organized Dumbledore had little knickknacks strewn about the shelves around the office.

Dumbledore in the chair behind his desk and gestured for me to sit across from him.

I took the seat and set my back on the ground by my feet. Folding my hands in my lap I looked up at Dumbledore, "Thank you for seeing me Headmaster."

"No problem my dear." Hearing him call me the familiar term made a heavy wave of nostalgia course through my body. "You said you wished to attend Hogwarts. Why now?"

I told him the same story I told the Evans. How my neighbor homeschooled me until I was fifteen and then dread from a heart attack, and ever since I've been going around trying to figure out what I should do. That was when the Evans found me, during one of my wanderings. I carefully omitted the fact that I appeared in a flash of lightning.

Dumbledore sat through my take in silence, and when I was finished he finally spoke, "I am sorry for your loss Miss Morrickson," I nodded in acceptance of his apology, "but I'm afraid I will not be able to accept you, unless you have taken your O.W.L's?"

Digging through my bag I quickly pulled out the results from when I had taken the O.W.L's in the 1940's. Looking up at the corner of my paper I saw my name and the date. The WRONG name and date. It was addressed to Danielle Rose Abby on June 27 of 1947 (AN: not sure if that date is totally accurate)

Thinking quickly I wandlessly glamoured the parchment, ignoring the small drain on my energy, to show Danielle Morrickson and changed the date to June 27 of 1975. Hopefully that was the right year because if Lily was going into her sixth year this year than they would have been taken in '75.

Handing the parchment over to him I prayed that he wouldn't notice as he looked over the parchment

"Everything seems to be in order here." Dumbledore folded up the parchment and I gave an inward sigh of relief as I stuffed it back in my bag. I returned my gaze to Dumbledore."I see no reason for you not to attend. Is there any reason you didn't receive a letter?"

"Well you see sir," think quickly, think quickly! "I'm originally from America. When my neighbor began teaching me she would sometimes take me on various vacations around the country. When she had a heart attack we had been vacationing here in Britain actually. I returned to America for a few months and grieved with her family. After that I began traveling and one time when I had made a trip to the bank I found out I was a Morrickson.

"Abigale–you know my caretaker–never mentioned my family much so she gave me her last name. I had gone to the banks in the hopes I would find out." I smiled, "and thankfully I did."

"So you decided to take on your real name?" Dumbledore seemed interested in my answer.

"Yes sir. It's my only real connection to my family and I decided to take it on. I didn't want to get rid of Abigales name but…"

Dumbledore held up a hand, "Say no more my dear." His eyes twinkled at me, "I was wondering about your accent, and now that you have mentioned it I can see it was American." He clapped his hands, "You would be a sixth year yes?"

"Yes sir."

He nodded and rifled through one of his desk drawers and pulled out a thick envelope. "This has a list of everything you will need for this school year." I accepted the envelope and held it in my lap.

"Would you like to be sorted into a House here or during the welcoming feast with the first years?"

I thought about the question for a moment, but I didn't want to have to be sorted with the first years in front of the whole school. "I would prefer to be sorted here, if you don't mind."

Dumbledore waved away my concern, "Not at all my dear." He took the Sorting Hat down from the shelves and right before the Hat sank over my eyes I wondered what house I would get this time.

What an interesting situation you are in Miss Abby. Or is it Morrickson now?

You remember me? I asked in disbelief.

I do indeed.

But Death said–

Not one person will remember you. I am not exactly a person am I? I had nothing to say against that, because he wasn't a person. Now let's see, you've come to finish your schooling in Hogwarts. You certainly took your time, the hat chuckled at his wittiness. It seems I need to sort you again. You definitely still have that Slytherin cunning, and the loyalty of a Hufflepuff. You've gained more courage and bravery, especially when in the face of danger. I remembered back when I had faced Grindelwald and the basilisk. Indeed. You have the smarts for a Ravenclaw, but you're lacking in wittiness, along with the ambition for Slytherin. I believe I made the right choice the first time when I put you in "GRYFFINDOR!"

Hearing the name of my original house being called brought a smile to my face. Dumbledore took the hat off of my head and I saw a smile on his face as well. "A good house Gryffindor. It was my own house when I still went to school here in Hogwarts." He set the Hat back on its shelf.

"Headmaster, do you have any way to help me get to Diagon Alley? I'm meeting the Evans there."

Dumbledore smiled at me and walked over to the fireplace in his office where he gestured for me to join him. "You can use my Floo if you'd like. I assume you know how to use it?"

"Yes sir." I took a small handful of floo powder and before I left I heard Dumbledore say, "Tell the family hello for me?"

"Of course sir," and I was whisked away.

I watched as many fireplaces flew passed me until I was finally spat out into the Leaky Cauldron where I agreed to meet up with Lily and her family.

I spotted them not to far off and I started walking over, waving my arm in the hopes to gain their attention.

It paid off when Lily saw my approach and waved back. The rest of her family noticed and smiled over at me. Petunia was absent, and I wouldn't be surprised if she decided to stay home.

"So how'd it go?" Basil was wrapped around Lily's shoulder and one of her eyes flicked open to observe me.

I lifted the envelope containing my list of needed school supplies. "You are now looking at Hogwarts' new Gryffindor student."

Lily gave a girlish squeal and hugged me. I laughed at her antics and returned the hug.

When she let me go I heard Basil grumbling about being squished between us and I stifled my snickers. "School is going to be starting soon, so you will have to get your supplies." Lily said.

I noddede in agreement, "I could get them now and meet you guys back at your place?"

Mr. and Mrs. Evans both agreed, but Lily was intent on staying with me to help. Her parents agreed but we had to be back to their house at a certain time. Once we agreed they left the Alley and we set off to start our shopping.

"So where should we start?" Lily asked.

"I figured we should go to Gringotts first. I haven't checked on my accounts in awhile." Lily agreed with me and we made out way towards the large marble building, Lily gained some odd glances because of the snake draped over her shoulders.

When we walked inside I went up to the first available teller I could find. "Good evening sir, could you get me the account manager of the Morrickson vaults?" The goblin I had spoken to looked up with a sneer.

"Do you have proof you are a Morrickson?"

I blinked a couple times and looked down at my fingers. When the rings for the Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Morrickson houses showed themselves I quietly gasped. Re-hiding the Ravenclaw and Slytherin rings I showed the goblin the Morrickson ring. "Will this work?"

The goblin still sneered but nodded. "Razorclaw!" Another goblin scurried over. "Bring these two to the Morrickson accounts manager."

The other goblin bowed and looked at us in silent demand to follow before he strode away as quickly as his short legs could take him. Lily and I hurried after him and he brought us down a dark hallway before we cam across a door. "This is Gezbek's office. He's the account manager for the Morrickson family properties and vaults." He quickly knocked on the door before striding away.

Lily and I looked at each other with raised brows before entering the room. Inside was another goblin who looked similar to Razorfang, only this one had longer and blacker hair with a couple more frown lines.

"Miss Morrickson, it is good to see you are still alive." The goblin had a smirk on his face.

Oh dear do the goblins remember me too? My eyes flickered over to Lily in slight worry but I returned my gaze the Gezbek. He caught the movement of my eyes and seemed to understand that Lily was in the dark regarding my jumps through time.

"Was there something specific you wished to speak with me about?"

"Yes, when I came here last I had gotten a pouch directly linked to the Morrickson trust fund, and I wanted to see if it was still working. Also I wanted to get some updated papers on the income for all of my vaults."

I took out the pouch I had been referring to and handed it over to the goblin. He took it into his gnarled hands and inspected every inch of it. When he tried reaching inside he was immediately shocked, one of the charms should anybody other than myself try to get money out of the bag.

He handed it to me and asked me to reach in and take out any money should I feel it. I did as he asked and when I took out a handful of galleons Gezbek nodded. "It will still work. As for those forms," he opened a drawer in his desk. I expected it to stop but the drawer kept extending, and extending, until Gezbek forced it to a stop. He fingers through a couple folders until he pulled out three different ones.

"This one," he held up one manila folder, "has all the needed information on the Morrickson vaults and estates. This one," he held up another, "is on the Ravenclaw estates and vaults. Considering you are only a magical heiress you will only have access to the trust vaults, along with only a couple of the properties." I nodded for him to continue and he held up the last folder, "This one has all of the information regarding the Slytherin vaults and estates. Again, because you are the magical heiress you are restricted to what you have access to"

I accepted each folder when he handed them to me and I put them into my bag. "Thank you for seeing us Gezbek." I held out my hand for him to shake and he seemed surprised by the action, but nonetheless he shook it.

We left the bank and I was happy to be able too keep the Morrickson ring visible for others to see. I no longer had to hide the fact I was a pureblood, however impossible it was considering I wasn't even supposed to be from this world originally.

Lily took a hold of my arm and began dragging me away from the bank, "Next we can go get some school robes."

She brought me up to the familiar store front of Madam Malkins and when we stepped inside I saw the familiar, yet thirty year older, face of Madam Malkin.

"Hello dearies! What will you be needing today?"

I stepped forward and Lily released her grip around my arm, "I need a couple school robes. Five will do."

"Wonderful! Come on over here and stand up on this pedestal–there we go."

Tape measures began flying around me and measuring much like Olivanders did when I got my wand. "Instead of skirts, will you give me pants?"

Malkin looked at me in surprise, "Why on earth would you want to wear pants?"

I shrugged, "I don't like skirts," I looked down at her from where I was standing on the pedestal, "Why would I want to wear skirts?" She huffed but complied with my request.

When we walked out of the store all five black robes were folded up into a bag charmed to be featherlight.

We moved on to get the potions ingredients I would need for the year. Shopping through the store made me think of Slughorn. Then I realized he would still be teaching and I nearly groaned at the unfairness of the world. Everybody I knew seemed to be somehow putting themselves back into my life, and the worst part of it all was that they wouldn't even know me anymore.

Lily snapped me out of my depressed funk and we bought the ingredient. We asked the store owner to charm the containers to be unbreakable before putting them into a bag. Along with a pewter cauldron.

"I suppose we should get my books next."

We set off for Flourish & Blotts. Lily was constantly gaining stares from the passing shoppers. She would stare back at them in confusion until I finally whispered into her ear, "It's because of Basil. You want me to take her?"

Understanding lit up in Lily's eyes and she refused to hand Basil over. Instead she held her head high and walked with pride. I smiled at her, glad she didn't fall under the pressure of the stares and hand Basil over.

Inside of F&B we split up so we could gather the books faster. Whenever I came across a particular book that caught my eye, even if it wasn't on the list, I would add it onto my growing stack of books.

When I met Lily at the counter to pay for the books she eyes the large stack in surprise. "Did you really need all of those books?"

"Of course not," I snorted, "whatever extra books I grabbed are because they looked interesting."

"You can't judge a book by its cover Danielle." Lily looked at me sternly.

"I know I know," I gave her a mischievous smile, "but it's easier to find books that way."

She lightly hit my arm and when we were done buying the books we took dragged them off of the counter and carried them outside.

"He could have charmed these to be lighter," I complained.

"Well if you didn't get so many extra books than it wouldn't be so heavy." I could hear the smirk in her voice.

"Hey I–"

I suddenly collided with what felt like a brick wall, and I fell to the ground. My books fell all around me and my potion ingredients rolled out of the bag. Thank god I had that man charm them.

Quickly putting the ingredients back so they wouldn't roll away I started apologizing. "I'm sorry, I couldn't see where I was going." Whoever it was that I had collided with had fallen to the ground as well and he began helping me collect my fallen books.

"That's alright. I've been known for blinding people with my charm."

I finally looked to see who it was that I collided with and raised my eyebrows in an 'are you serious?' gesture. The boy had blue-grey eyes with shoulder length wavy black hair. And arrogant smirk was on his face and when he saw my violet colored eyes his own blue-grey widened in interest.

Ripping one of my books from his hands I set it with the others and stood up. Brushing off my robes I looked at the stack of books and pursed my lips before shrugging and using wandless magic to shrink them. It drained me a little but at least now I could just put them in a pocket.

"Will you shut up Potter!" My eyes were drawn to Lily's tense form. Her face was flushed with irritation and anger, a complete contrast to the happy girl from a few minutes ago. "She isn't dangerous! I'm just watching her!"

At first I thought they had been talking about me, but then I realized they were talking about Basil, who was still on Lily's shoulders. I sidled up next to her and out a calming hand on her shoulder. "Hey Lily. Think you could introduce me?" I gestures to the four boys in front of us, but I was pretty sure I already knew who they were.

Lily took a deep breath and seemed to force herself to calm down. She held her hand out to the amber eyed boy, with short auburn colored hair. I saw a couple scars spotting his face, and I assumed there was more along his body. "This is Remus Lupin. He's a sixth year Gryffindor as well."

Remus stuck his hand out and a warm smile crossed his face. I returned the warm smiled and firmly shook his hand, "It's wonderful to meet you Mr. Lupin."

Remus chuckled, "Please call me Remus." I agreed quickly. He looked so much healthier and happier here than from what I saw in the movie. Of course, by then all of his friends had been either killed, assumed dead only to become a traitor, and the other was sent to prison before breaking out and dying a couple years later.

"This is Peter Pettigrew." Hearing that disgusting, vile traitors name, I forced a smile onto my face, pushing all of my negative emotions behind my occlumency barriers and I prayed to Merlin that none of them noticed. Pettigrew was short and a little on the plump side. He had blonde hair and blue eyes with a face riddled with acne.

When he held his arm out to shake I hesitated for about a millisecond before reaching out to firmly grasp his hand. Possibly a little harder than I intended but that was alright.

"James Potter." I tried to hold back my smile. She said his name with an underlying tone of contempt that it was funny to think how she would end up marrying him.

James really did look like Harry. With his messy black locks that looked as though he had tried to tame them but it just didn't work. His hazel eyes had a spark of mischief and a goofy smile would cross his face when he looked over at Lily. Although I could see why Lily wouldn't like him all that much, I could see the slight arrogance in his eyes along with the mischief.

Once we shook hands Lily finally pointed to the last boy that I had collided with earlier, but before she could introduce him he walked up to me and smoothly held out his hand. "Sirius Black, prankster extraordinaire and," he brought up his hand and smoothed back his hair, " definitely the handsomest guy you'll ever see."

Black gave a lopsided smirk that would make most girls blush and become a stuttering mess. While I admit it was a very cute smirk I wouldn't let it affect me, as he clearly intended it to do.

I shook his outstretched hand and made a show of looking him up and down. I released his hand and shrugged with a little smirk, "I've seen better." *coughcough*Channing Tatum*cough*

Black's face lost its smirk and adopted both an incredulous expression and an insulted one. Most likely because I just took a blow to his pride.

His friends guffawed with laughter and Lily was holding a hand to her mouth, but I could see a smile of amusement breaking through.

I walked over to her, my smirk still in place, and unwrapped Basil from her shoulders before draping her over mine. "Let's go finish shopping yea?"

We quickly made our escape and once we were out of sight Lily quickly burst out laughing and I chuckled along with her. "I can't believe you said that!"

I looked at her with my amused smile still faintly on my face, "What do you mean?"

"Well," she finally calmed down to just giggles, "nobody's ever said that to Black before because, well, they agreed with him. When he threw his signature smirk at you I figured you would be like most other girls and start either blushing and stuttering or try to flirt so you could get into his pants," my smile of amusement came back when she said this, "so I was pleasantly surprised when instead of either of those things you shoot him down and tell him you've seen people hotter than him!" Lily descended into another fit of giggles.

It was true though. From my time there were many guys that looked better than him. Sure they were all famous people, but that didn't change the fact that they were better looking. Thinking back to first year I was forced to admit that even Riddle was hotter than Black is.

"Hey, where did your books go?" I looked over to Lily and patted my pocket. She understood what I meant and pouted, "That's cheating." I laughed and tried taking my books out of her hands, but she refused.

Eventually I gave up, and by then we had some extra time to kill. I observed the shops around is and spotted the Quidditch store. When Lily realized where I was dragging her to she groaned, "A Quidditch fan huh?"

"Not really. I only like to ride on the broom, playing or watching the sport doesn't hold any interest for me." Lily brightened at the news and began exploring the store with me.

I found the newest model–a Cleansweep seven–and we made our way out of the store and left for the Leaky Cauldron.

When we got to the muggle streets of London we hailed a taxi and Lily gave the driver her address so we could get back to the Evans family home. Thankfully on time or else Mrs. Evans would have sent us off to bed without dinner.