I do not own the rights to anything from the world of Harry Potter, that pleasure belongs to J.K. Rowling. I am only responsible for the OC's created for the purposes of this FanFiction. I do however hope that you enjoy my fic and please bare with me as I hope to improve my over all spelling grammar and of course story telling (This fic is being totally rewritten, as I wasn't happy with the original. And have deleted it.) by the end of this. With that in mind please feel free to read & review.

Chapter Four

Louisa felt very alone despite how crowded the train actually was. Her brothers and sister had all disappeared to be with their own friends as soon as the train had left Kings Cross. She didn't know how long she had been dragging her trunk down the train for, when she finally found a compartment with only two occupant's.

Sliding the door open tentatively Louisa poked her head in with a tentative smile.

"Excuse me. Would you mind if I joined you?"

The two girls looked up in surprise but both had warm welcoming smiles.

"Sure we don't mind!" smiled the small girl with the mousy brown hair.

The other girl a pretty blonde with green eyes. She helped Louisa lift her trunk up onto the luggage rack.

"I'm Sarah, this is Alice." Sarah tilted her head in the direction of the brunette.

"Louisa."

The three girls fell into easy conversation. Alice it turned out was the daughter of two renowned healers at St Mungo's. Alice was shy but the more questions that Sarah and Louisa asked the more they seemed to drag her out of her shell.

Sarah was a lot more out going. She smiled and laughed easily, Louisa found. And out of the three girls Louisa thought that Sarah had the most interesting of up upbringings. Her farther was a magizoologist and had introduced his daughter at a early age to all the strange and beautiful creatures that inhabited the magical world.

Both Alice and Louisa oohed and ahed as she described the time her father had taken her to a dragon sanctuary that he was visiting in Romania. In comparison to her father her mothers occupation was considered by Louisa to be dull. But her mother was a florist, but being a muggle it was unlikely that she would have a very exciting or dangerous job.

Louisa was proud to answer that her father was auror at the ministry. And that her mother had until she had Louisa been an political correspondent for the daily mail. These days however Eleanor contented herself with being a mother of six and writing a small article on raising magical children. An article which had proved very popular. Louisa suspected was down to numerous letters home, about Alex's extracurricular activities.

"Wait your not related to THE Christoff Nightshade?" asked Alice her big brown cow eyes going wide.

"Hey I recognize that name! Wasn't he the old department head for the auror department? Didn't he walk off a cliff?" Sarah must have realized what she was saying as she paled, with realization.

"Yeah he was my grandfather."

"I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have said that!"

"Don't worry about it. We don't really know what happened." Louisa felt a twinge of sadness at the mention of her grandfather. But she wasn't stupid, she knew what people thought.

But before Sarah or Alice could ask anymore questions, the compartment door opened. In the door way stood a pretty red head with emerald green eyes. And lurking just behind her right shoulder was a pale, skinny boy with the greasiest hair that Louisa thought she had ever seen.

"Sorry to interrupt but would you mind if we joined you? Only our last compartment was full of horrible little toe rags!"

The red head spoke very quickly and if Louisa had to guess she would say that the girl was still angry. If only for the flushed color of her cheeks and her red ears.

"Sure."

"Thanks! I'm Lily and this is Severus."

The boy Severus barely moved his head by way of acknowledgement. Lily sat opposite her friend with a sigh. Louisa found it amusing that the pair had already changed into there school robes. It seemed silly to her, seeing as it wasn't even noon.

"What happened in your last compartment?" asked Sarah.

Louisa couldn't help but wish that Sarah hadn't asked. Once Lily started it seemed unlikely that she would ever stop. She told them how two boys had poked fun at her friend because he was excited about which house he would be sorted into.

It struck Louisa as odd that the girl didn't mention which house he was excited to be joining. She also found it incredibly creepy the way Severus watched Lily as she spoke. He looked at her the same way that her brothers looked at dinner, after a day of playing quidditch.

"You know that you don't get to choose which house you get in?" asked Alice.

Lily shook her head. "How do they decide?"

"It's not so much they as it is who or rather what." smiled Sarah.

Lily frowned at Alice, Sarah and Louisa. Severus however made no move to explain when she looked to him for explanation. Louisa had only been sat with the boy a short while but she was already irritated by him. Sighing in her annoyance she decided that she would explain the ceremony.

"You don't come from a magical family do you?"

"No but Sev does." Lily smiled at her friend.

Louisa found herself sighing again as she explained about the founding of Hogwarts and the four houses. And the creation of the sorting hat as far as she could remember. It had been years since her grandmother had told her the story.

"Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin are the four houses. Which were you arguing over?"

"The boy kept saying really awful things about Sev wanting to be in Slytherin."

"Ah well it doesn't exactly have the best reputation. What house did the boy say he wanted to be in?" asked a tentative Alice.

"Gryffindor." Lily's green eyes watched as the three girls, exchanged looks of understanding.

"There's a long history of house rivalry between those two houses. I should know I have a brother in each one. I wouldn't worry too much." Smiled Louisa.

Louisa could see the relief on Lily's face.

"Sweets off the trolley!" yelled a plump witch from the corridor.

Severus got up with Alice to go get some sweets. Louisa couldn't help it she just had to know.

"Hey, are you and that guy like an item?"

"Who Sev? Oh god no! We are strictly just friends!" laughed Lily.

The girls grinned at each other. Glancing over her shoulder, Lily leaned in closer to Sarah and Louisa.

"What exactly is Slytherin's reputation?" Lily bit her bottom lip.