"Wow," said Ginny, as they ate their candy on the Hogwarts Express. Ariana had just finished recounting to her everything she had heard from Professor Lupin.

"Yeah, I know. It's a lot of information."

"Are you alright?" Ginny asked. "I mean, they were your parents."

Ariana shrugged. "I'm mad at Peter Pettigrew, and I'm pretty disgusted that I ever found Scabbers cute. But honestly it's kind of cool knowing all this stuff about them. I never knew anything about them." She sighed and looked out the train window. "I am really not looking forward to when this thing gets to King's Cross."

Ginny gave her a sympathetic smile. "You're going to have to face your parents eventually."

"Yep."

"Do keep in mind that they were told to remain quiet by Dumbledore himself. He can be pretty intimidating."

"I'll keep it all in mind, Ginny, but twelve years of lies is twelve years of lies. If you suddenly found out that your parents had been keeping something from you for literally your entire life, what would you think?"

"That it's impressive none of my brothers found out," Ginny said.

"What if they were in on it?"

"I'd be mad," Ginny said. "I'm not saying you shouldn't be. I'm just saying, I don't know, maybe don't destroy your relationship with your parents over it."

"That's not my intention," Ariana said. "Anyway, other than that whole Sirius Black business, this was a pretty quiet year. It's nice when there aren't dark forces attacking the school."

"Yeah," Ginny agreed. "I hope the rest of the years are like that too. I've had enough of dark forces."

As the train rolled on, Ariana began to feel a little sleepy. She was woken up by a hooting noise, and looked up to see a small, tropical-looking bird flitting around the compartment, a letter in its beak. She frowned and took the letter, and the bird flew away. She opened it up and read.

Ariana,

Remus wrote me to explain who you were; he thought I should know. He said that he explained everything to you, so I hope you know that I cared about your parents very much. Because they gave you away, they never appointed you godparents, but seeing as I'm Harry's godfather, I'm happy to consider myself yours as well, unofficially. And, of course, secretly. I hope to get to meet you someday.

Padfoot

She smiled to herself as she read the letter.

"Who's it from?" Ginny asked.

"Sirius Black," Ariana replied.

Ginny's eyes widened. "What's it say?"

She handed her the letter. "It's nice of him to send it."

"Yeah."

"And I guess now there's four people other than me and my parents who know my secret. Well, maybe five. I'm not convinced Professor Snape hasn't figured it out."

"Wouldn't he have ratted you out by now?"

"I don't know. Nothing about him makes any sense to me."

Ginny shrugged. "Well, your secret seems pretty safe. It's safe with me, at least."

Ariana smiled. "I know."

A couple more hours went by, and the knot in Ariana's stomach grew worse. Finally the train reached King's Cross Station, and she got out, waving goodbye to Ginny as they headed to their respective families.

"How was the school year?" her mother asked.

"Pretty good," Ariana replied. "I learned a lot."

"That's great," said her father.

The three of them got in the car and drove to the hotel they were staying at; their flight left tomorrow at noon. She was trying to decide whether she should wait until they got home or confront them right now in the hotel room, but before she could, the decision was made for her.

"So," her father started. "Did you spend any more time with Harry Potter?"

"You mean my brother?" she said, planting her feet where she stood.

His eyes widened. "You know."

Her mother had turned to look at her, face white as a sheet.

"I know," said Ariana. "I figured it out. And Professor Dumbledore told me the whole story."

"How did you figure it out?" her mother asked.

"I look like his mother, and my parents died the same month as his. I put two and two together. Four means you've been lying to me all my life."

"Ariana, we didn't have a choice," her mother said.

"Really?" She clenched her fists. "Twelve years of lies, mom! Twelve years!"

"Professor Dumbledore said that you would be safer if you never found out who you were. His intention had been to keep you from having any connection to that world. He had hoped that by sending you to America as a baby, your name would never be put for Hogwarts, because the system wouldn't consider you a British child. But it still did. He didn't want you ever going back there. He didn't want you knowing anything about Harry Potter, or your birth parents, because he believes that the man who killed them is going to come back someday, and he doesn't want that man knowing that you exist."

Ariana weighed her mother's words in her head, trying to push away the thought of Voldemort returning someday. "Even if I believe all of that, even if you thought I'd be listed as an American witch, and go to the American school of magic, you still knew that I had magical abilities, and you didn't tell me anything about that!"

Her father shrugged. "We knew that you would find out eventually. But we wanted you to have a normal childhood first. If you'd known that you were magic, you would have wanted to learn magic. But we couldn't teach it to you. And every single magical child born to non-magical parents finds out for the first time when they get their letter. Was it really so bad to have that happen to you?"

Ariana opened her mouth, then closed it. "I guess not. But-you were just never going to tell me that I had a brother? Or even the names of my parents?"

"We were instructed not to," her father reiterated. "And besides, we didn't want you having to keep a secret like that from your friends. Is it really better knowing that Harry Potter is your brother when you also know that you can never tell him?"

Ariana weighed her father's words in her head. "Yes and no. I like knowing where I'm from. But I do hate keeping the secret from him. I don't know what I would have done with that information before, though. I guess I'm not mad anymore." And indeed, the anger that she had felt towards them for months had dissipated. "I just don't like the thought that you would be willing to keep something so big from me."

"We just wanted to keep you safe," her mother said. "But we won't lie to you anymore."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

She smiled and went back to unpacking her things.

A/N: Well, that's a wrap. Thanks everyone for reading it. Be on the lookout for Part 3, which will be up soon-ish.