AN Sorry if anyone waited for it. I was lazy, I have to admit that. I think that I will post a new chapter in few days so it will not be too bad. Also, thank you for anyone who follows this story and if you have any questions regarding characters, plot or anything else, ask them in the comments.
Lyanna waked confidently towards the train with Potter twins her family (parents, grandparents, great grandfather Jaeherys and Uncle Benjen). She walked like a true pureblood Heiress but inside she did not feel well. It was her second year in school and she felt that nothing good will happen. Maybe it was because of this house elf that warned Harry and Veronica or it could be something to do with 'oh so great Lockheart'. No one in her family was paying a lot of mind to her, she realised. Harry and Veronica were talking quietly to each other, probably discussing something about Hufflepuff, their own house. Uncle Benjen and her Mother were laughing as they talked to each other. Lya remembered her grandfather Rickard telling her once that all of his children except for Uncle Ned, were his wild wolves and she could see it now in the way they were behaving – careless, happy and content. The girl was often envious of her mother, the older woman had many brothers and Lyanna had no one. She had Potters and her cousins but it was so different, she had no older brother to tease her all the time or younger brother that she could joke with. She was alone and she often wished, after she heard her parents discussing something about a ritual that made sure that they had one but a very powerful child, that they would never do it. That way, she would not be alone.
Cleaning her head from depressing thoughts, she saw Harry and Veronica heading in the direction of their Hufflepuff friends, Susan and Ernie, after saying goodbye to her family. The young girl herself turned around to face her great-grandfather. The old man embraced her and did not say anything except for the quick goodbye, knowing that she would be fine. Then Lyanna was pulled by the rest of her family for the quick hugs. There were few tears but nothing major. Finally, she made her way towards the train with a trunk in her one hand and waving to her family with the other one. It was 10.30 so she had a lot of time. As soon as she entered a train, she started walking towards the end of the train where, hopefully, her friends would be. The luck was on her side today and in one of the last few compartments, she saw Anthony and Su sitting together, chatting between each other.
"Hello. How are both of you today?" She asked them with a smile, getting their attention. When the other girl saw her, she jumped from her seat and hugged young Snow very tightly. Anthony chuckled softly and moved to hug his friend as well when Su finished.
"I have been fine during the summer, Lyanna, and thank you for asking. I have been researching a few ideas for the names but it would help if I knew what they would be useful for." Said the boy, looking at his friend as they sat again on their seats. Lyanna had sent all her friends a letter at the start of the holidays asking them to come up with 7 people in their group of friends but she did not state why she was needing them.
"I will tell all of you that little secret when everyone will be here. As we are waiting, why don't you tell me something more about your summer?" Inquired Lyanna, waiting for her friends to talk.
In the next thirty minutes, they were joined by Theodore, Klara, Padma and Hermione. Lyanna decided not to start her explanation before the train took off in order to not be interrupted by their departure. Finally, the train started going towards Hogwarts. Lyanna made sure that the doors were locked and the curtains were drawn.
"You may all think why I asked all of you to think about the names for all of us. I will not tell you that but I want you to think about it by yourselves and then discuss it." Lyanna was smirking at the annoying faces of her friends. They did not complain about it however and started thinking like the good Ravenclaws they were. "I will give you one clue – it is something to do with the Flowers, Stone and Rivers."
"Hmm... A group of people who seemed to prank a specific group of people without giving out their identities..." Said Klara, wondering out loud for all to hear.
"The professors were not able to know whom they are because otherwise, we would know." Added Tony to their little discussion.
"It means that their names were having a meaning only known to them..." Started Padma.
"...or to others but they could connect it with a larger group of people." Finished Theo his friend's thought.
"That means that Lya wants to do something the same or similar." Mused Su.
"It could also be that she would be trying to get to know their names but since she asked us to find nicknames for us, this would not be the case." Contemplated Hermione, wanting to find an answer.
"So Lya wants us to do something like those three but the thing is why?" Asked Padma.
"They were doing revenge to all those people for something their families did." Contributed Klara.
"But why they did it now? Did they just found out about it or did they wait for a good moment?" Inquired Hermione.
"They had to just found out and decided to do their little revenge because if they knew before, they would do it earlier." Claimed Tony. Everyone agreed with him and decided to come back to their discussion. Throughout the whole time, Lyanna was sitting silently, smiling and admiring her friends' logic and understanding of the situation.
"Lyanna, do you want us to make revenge seeking vengeance because of people that hurt us in some way but without them knowing that it was us?" Asked Hermione, putting all the pieces together.
"Of course! Think about it, somebody says something bad about any of us or even plays a small prank and then here we are, showing the power of seven of us. Of course, we would never give all of our nicknames at the same time but if anyone wanted to look closely, they would find enough links between all of them. This is something that I have thought about since the end of the last year. What do you think about it?"
Six second years were thinking about it for a while and Klara was the first one that spoke after almost a minute of silence.
"I don't know about others, but personally I think that it is a good idea. We know that some people will, for example, offend Hermione in one way or another just because she is Muggleborn. Having this little group will make sure that people will understand that there will be consequences for their actions."
"You're right, Klara. Some Slytherins or Purebloods who are like us at the start of the first year, do not understand that there is truly no difference between us. We all have magic." Said hopefully Su, smiling as she said those words.
"You see what I meant. We will be protectors of this school not only for our use, if we see a student being bullied, we will act. I think we all know from an experience that teachers don't really care." Lyanna muttered darkly and seeing Hermione's scandalized expression, she had to add "Hermione, all of us with the exception of you, were bullies for two months. I don't remember any teachers coming to me and saying that it is bad. I don't know if it is because my family is powerful or because I could be disinherited for any rule breaking. I am also quite certain that Theodore, Anthony, Su, Klara or Padma were approached by any teachers in regard to their behaviour. Everyone knew what we were doing. This means that they are not doing anything to stop it. But we can, we are changed and I can assure all of you that I will do anything to make sure that nobody will be bullied as long as I am in this school."
Everyone looked at her and she could see that they agreed with her.
"Then I think that we should be giving you our ideas for nicknames." Said Anthony with a smirk that could rival any Slytherin. Lyanna took a quill from her trunk along with a parchment, ready to make a list.
"Who wants to go first?"
"I will," Offered quickly Theo, "I thought that we could use names of the Greek or Roman gods for our names. The ones that could be the most like us would be the ones that we would choose."
"Not bad idea but everyone knows them. It would be better if we took the first letter of our name and make a new name that starts on that letter. For example, Anthony could be Adam, Ares or something like that." Said Su and Klara nodded slightly, both liking the idea.
"We could combine both ideas and also include the Greek titans." Said, Anthony. "Su could be Selene, Titaness of the moon. Hermione could be Hera. Lyanna could be Leto. I could be Ares. Theodore could be Thanatos. Padma could be Phobe. Klara could be... Klaraaa could beeee... I don't know"
"That means that we can't use it, Tony. We need to find something different but this idea was very good." Said softly Lyanna, liking both the boy and his idea.
'You could do something with Hugor of the Hill, you know?" Told her Bran in her head.
'What do you mean?' Asked Lyanna back using her thoughts.
'Whom he was?'
'He was the first King of Andals... OH.' Lyanna understood what Bran meant
"I think I have a perfect solution to that problem. Remember when half a year ago I mentioned a book from which I took Kermit's name?" Everyone nodded eagerly, waiting for her to move on. "In this book, there was a chapter of an ancient civilization that the Tully family and other families of the alliance came from – Andals. They believed in the Seven who were personifications of one God. They were shown as the Just Father, Caring Mother, Wise Crone, Fearless Warrior, Hard-Working Smith, Talented Maiden and Dark Stranger, the God of Death. We could use their names."
Everyone looked surprised. Since they came from the book that as far as they know was only read by Lyanna in quite a few years, that would mean that nobody would connect them to it.
"I love it. It connects our previous concepts and brings new one as well." Said Padma, admiration clear in her voice.
"I think I already know whom each one of us could be. Theo as Father, Klara as Mother, Padma as Maiden, Su as Warrior, Tony as Smith, Hermione as Crone and I as Stranger." Everyone was nodding with smiles on their faces.
"And we could name ourselves as Andals." Offered Klara hopefully. Everyone liked it very much. It was decided by them that they would wait until they would hear any mentions of bullying before acting. They also had to find a place where they could meet and all of them would work on it before their main plans would-be set-in motion.
After a few hours on the train and one visit from the Trolley Lady, they arrived at Hogwarts. Lyanna and the rest of the newly formed Andals headed towards the carriages that were pulled by the deadly looking horses but as she saw that nobody mentioned anything about it, she did not say anything.
When they have arrived in the Great Hall, they took their usual places on the table. After a few minutes of waiting, the new bunch of first years have arrived. Lyanna saw equal amount being sorted to each house. She was especially alert about Tommen Stark, her cousin and friend, who joined Gryffindor (just like his parents and older brother) and Luna Lovegood who joined Ravenclaws. Lyanna heard that Luna's mother died a few years ago in the potion accident and she felt sorry for the girl. Also, Ginevra Weasley was sorted to Gryffindor just like all of her brothers. Lya decided that Damien, Bran and she would not prank her because she seemed too innocent and scared, there was no point of terrifying her. It was also officially announced that Lockheart would be their teacher which resulted in 'OH's' from many girls, eye rolls from most of the boys and Lyanna's headbanging quite loudly into space on the table currently not being occupying by and dishes or goblets. It was very loud that everyone in the hall heard it and few students chuckled. Finally, Dumbledore allowed them to eat, in Lya's opinion, well-deserved dinner after learning who would be their teacher.
As they ate, there were many quiet conversations happening on the table. Lyanna was currently discussing their history essay with Padma when she saw Luna Lovegood sitting by herself, many first years refusing sitting with her. Young Snow decided to sit next to the young girl. She excused herself from her group of friends and made her way towards the new Ravenclaw.
"Hello Luna, can I sit with you?" She asked with a small smile and warm eyes.
"Yes, stranger. After all, there is no one else except Nargles that reside in this castle and me." Answered the girl with a dreamy voice. Lyanna did not know what exactly nargles were but she did not ask, not wanting to seem like she is forcing their conversation too much.
"Oh, we are no strangers here. My name is Lyanna Snow. I am in my second year here."
"It is very nice Lyanna Snow. I hope that we will become friends here. I don't have a lot of them except for the young Ginevra but she was sorted to Gryffindor." Lyanna's heart was warming as she heard the girl saying about not having any friends.
"I'm sure that we will be. If you want, you could sit with my friends and me during meals. We could also help you with any subject that you may struggle in school." She said warmly, not acting as she would usually.
"Thank you, Stranger, for those warm words. I would be quite happy to accept that." Lyanna was quite confused. The girl called her Stranger again even though she knew her name. Snow heiress was getting a little bit nervous and the whole situation was creepy.
Finally, she excused herself and came back to her friends. As soon as she did that, it was time to come back to their common rooms after singing the school song. She left quickly with Hermione in order to avoid everyone on their way to the common room and to be the first ones there. Somehow, they did and then they made their way towards their room. Lyanna quickly checked on Kermit, whom she released earlier that day and who had flown there. Making sure that he got enough water, she changed her clothes and went to sleep after saying goodnight to Hermione.