"Please?" Harry begged. "Please, please, please, please, please, please?" Harry clasped his hands together and fell to his knees. Dumbledore was trying to conceal his smile.
"Harry, I already have allowed you to go meat the train down at Hogsmeade, why do you need to drive down there?" He asked." Give me three good reasons." Harry thought for a minute.
"Uh- so I don't have to walk?" He said. "And that way I wont take up room on the carriages on the way back. And I won't be able to drive all year probably, unless I can on Hogsmeade weekends."
"Harry, none of the other students are going to be able to drive for the rest of the year either." Dumbledore pointed out. Harry took a deep breath.
"Please?" He begged. "Please, please, please, please, please, please, please?" Dumbledore laughed.
"I'll allow it, but you have to promise to stop saying please." He said. "I'm regretting the day I taught you how to drive."
"Well, you didn't have to." Harry said. Over the summer, Harry had received a car for his birthday. The sender had left no name to it except 'a fan.' All of the teachers that had stayed at Hogwarts had tried every anti-dark curse charm knew on it. The car was clean, there was nothing wrong with it except that it had come with a flat tire, and that was fixable.
"I know I didn't have to." Dumbledore said with a sigh. "But it would have been a waste of a good car."
"Exactly." Harry said.
"Well you may as well go get it. The train should be here pretty soon." Dumbledore said. Harry smiled slyly.
"I already have it." He said. He stuck a hand in his cloak pocket and pulled out a key chain. There was a car key on a ring and then there was what seemed to be a little model of a forest green jeep. He brandished it at Dumbledore.
"Good show, Harry." He said with a chuckle. "Now get the show on the road. You'll be late."
"Thanks Professor." Harry called behind him as the large doors opened up automatically for him. Now that Harry lived at the castle full time, Dumbledore had taken the liberty of teaching the front doors and the front gate to open up for him automatically. Harry had also been permitted to do magic over the summer, so he could get caught up with the rest of the class.
Last year Harry had missed three months of school. This was all due to the fact that he had been dead. Voldemort had used the deadly curse Avada Kedavra on him for a second time, and his plan had only half worked because Harry was now alive.
On the first day of school last year he had received some strange information. He was the Heir of Merlin. Being the Heir of Merlin gave you many good things, including the power to draw fire out of thin air without a wand and an ancient necklace. The necklace was the best though. It had a charm of a sliver sword on it with a platinum vine creeping around it. The sword had a special anti- dark arts charm placed on it that had saved Harry's life.
Once Harry was out side of the grounds he pulled out the little car. He mumbled a little charm and threw the car on the ground. It started to shake and then got bigger and bigger and bigger. Once it was full size again he jumped in and stuck the key in the ignition and twisted. The car revved up to life and Harry drove off to Hogsmeade.
Harry smiled. Driving was so fun and self-satisfying. He sighed as he reached the station. He braked and then turned the car off. From a distance he heard the sound of a train. It was right on time. Harry on had to wait a few seconds before the train sped past him coming to a screeching halt. Harry took in the smell of smoke like it was perfume. It was relaxing and smelled great.
Soon the doors of the train doors burst open and a mob of students came spilling out. He looked hard for his two friends, but couldn't see them. He cursed himself for being so short.
A girl that looked to be Harry's age walked out of the nearest compartment. She was very pretty with long, curly chocolate brown hair that reached her waist and eyes so dark brown they were almost black. She was on the shorter side of medium height. She peered around the station for a few moments before spotting the horseless carriages. She looked a bit startled but headed into an empty one. Not long after Malfoy and his two sidekicks came out of the train. They looked in the windows of a couple of the carriages before going into the same one as the mystery girl.
"Ouch! That hurt Hermione!" Came a deep voice.
"Did I step on your foot?" Said a girl's apologetic voice.
"Psyche!" The boy said and laughed. Hermione and Ron emerged from the crowd. Harry shut his eyes tight. They were- kissing.
"Oh my virgin eyes!" Harry exclaimed loudly and pretended to shield his eyes. Ron and Hermione looked around until they saw the short black haired boy cringing with his eyes covered. Hermione walked over to him and swatted his hands down.
"Very funny." She said sarcastically. Harry opened one eye.
"Is it safe to look?" He asked. Hermione scoffed. Harry opened his other eye.
"Much better." She said and hugged him. "How was your summer."
"Better than usual. The only problem was I had to study a lot." Harry said.
"How could you study? You can't do magic over the summer!" Hermione said
"They lifted that rule so I could get caught up." Harry said. "It was actually okay. Thing go a lot smoother and faster when you are getting privately tutored by all of the teachers, including Dumbledore."
"How'd you do on the O.W.L. tests?" Ron asked and scrunched up his nose.
"I didn't miss a single one. I had to a N.E.W.T. test to, for that advanced D.A.D.A. class I took last year." Harry cringed. "It was fifty five pages long."
"Did you say that Dumbledore tutored you?" Hermione asked. Harry nodded. "What did he teach you?" Harry grinned.
"How to drive." He said.
"Why would he teach you to drive? You don't even have a- oh!" Ron started, but then realized that Harry was pointing to the green jeep behind him.
"Is that yours?" Hermione asked eagerly.
"Yep. I didn't even have to pay for it. Somebody gave it to me for my birthday. Cool, huh?" Harry asked. They nodded, staring at the car. "So you guys want a lift or would you rather head up to the castle in the carriages?"
"Did Dumbledore say you could drive us back up?" Hermione asked sternly.
"Well, he let me drive down, you would think he would let me drive back up, wouldn't you?" Harry said. Hermione put her hands on her hips and shook her head.
"I call shotgun!" Ron said, ignoring her. He walked around to the other side of the car and jumped in the front seat. Hermione scoffed again and then got in the car and sat in the middle seat. Harry stuck the keys in the ignition and they started up the dirt road to Hogwarts. Ron immediately began fiddling with all the special gadgets in the car. He turned the radio on, started the windshield wipers and put the air conditioning on full blast. Harry rolled his eyes and flicked them all off again, except for the radio. (They were playing his favorite song.)
"HARRY WATCH OUT FOR THE GATE!" Hermione suddenly screamed as they tore up the rode. Startled, Harry slammed on the brakes.
"That was fun." Ron said and rubbed his neck. "Whip lash. My favorite."
"Hermione, I know what I'm doing." Harry said to his friend and started towards the castle again. Hermione was bracing herself for when they ran into the gate. This however never happened, because the gates opened for Harry when they sensed him coming. Hermione blushed and removed her hands from her eyes.
"Oh." She said meekly.
"Yeah. The doors to the castle open up for me like that too." Harry informed her.
"And all of us little people actually have to open them by ourselves." Ron said and pretended to sniff. Harry shut off the car and told everybody to get out.
"Reducto." Harry said. The car began to shake violently and then before you could blink, it was the tiny little key chain sized car again.
"That was cool," Ron commented as Harry attached the little car to the key ring and threw it in his pocket.
"Thanks." Harry said. "Hey, do you guys know who that new girl is?" Ron and Hermione thought for a moment.
"The one with the curly hair?" Ron asked.
"Yeah." Harry nodded.
"I think her name is Caroline." Ron said.
"No, it was Katherine." Hermione corrected.
"What year is she going to be in?" Harry wondered.
"Ours. She's from America." Hermione said.
"She was in our car, sitting alone. We tried to talk to her, but she must have some sort of social problem because she barely talked." Ron said. Harry's brow furrowed.
"That's strange." He said. "When I saw her get off the train, she didn't seem shy."
"She'll probably be in Ravenclaw." Ron said. "She was reading the entire time. But then again, so was Hermione, so I don't know." Harry laughed at the furious look on Hermione's face.
"Look, here come the carriages," Harry said, trying to prevent an argument this early in the year. The carriages stopped in a horizontal line facing the castle and the students began getting off. The first door to snap open was the carriage where Katherine was in. "She obviously has a high threshold for pain to. She was sitting with Malfoy and his two goons." Ron and Hermione laughed.
"No kidding." Hermione said. They walked into the castle with the rest of the people and sat down at their assigned tables. Professor McGonagall was standing at the door and when she saw the new girl she swooped her away with the first years.
"Oh how embarrassing." Hermione commented as she watched this happen. "Imagine being crammed into a room with all the first years." They all shuddered.
Soon the sorting hat was brought in and the long line of first years followed it. (Author's Note: For lack of poetry skills I am NOT writing a song.) They watched the kids one by one sit nervously on the stool and clapped politely to all of them, although they made a loud holler if a Gryffindor was chosen. The line only had three more people in it now. The last two first years trotted up to the stool and sat on it with much more courage than the rest of the bunch, now that they had seen how it worked. They were both sorted into Slytherin. McGonagall cleared her throat for silence.
"We have a transfer student this year. Katherine has come from America, and I expect you all to make her feel welcome here in her new surroundings. The same goes to the first years." She added as an afterthought. "Come on up here, dear." Katherine looked petrified. She stood up shakily and walked to the front of the room. The sight of everybody looking at her made her appear even whiter. She sat down on the stool and put the battered hat on her head. She sat there with her eyes closed for a long time. Harry felt sorry for her; she looked so freaked out. The hat opened it's little slit of a mouth wide.
"SLYTH-" it started. Katherine's eyes snapped open. She must have been thinking very hard because the hat's mouth shut again. Katherine's eyes shut. A curious wave of whispers spread through the student body. That had never happened before. "RAVEN-" The hat started again. Her eyes were wide open again. The hat shut its mouth. There was complete silence for a few minutes and then- "GRYFFINDOR!" Everybody cheered as Katherine stepped shakily down from the stand. She was as stiff as a board as she sat down at the table. Everybody patted her on the back and congratulated her.
"Honey, what's wrong?" Asked Parvati, who was sitting next to her.
"Nothing." Katherine mumbled.
"Okay, but you look pretty white. Here, eat something!" Lavender said kindly and passed her the mashed potatoes. Katherine thanked her and slopped some on her plate. Harry then realized that the food had appeared on the table. He began serving himself.
"Is your hair naturally that curly?" Parvati asked. Katherine nodded.
"Yeah," She said.
"How cool. I want hair like yours!" Lavender whined.
"Please, take it." She said. "It's a hassle to do everyday. My hair is so thick."
"What was America like?" Lavender asked.
"It was okay. Not that it isn't great here to," She added.
"Tell us about the American school." Parvati said. "Were there any cute boys?"
"There were a few…not as many as here though." She said Parvati and Lavender laughed at this. "I went to the Salem Institute for Witchcraft and Wizardry. It's this huge old mansion on the outskirts of town."
"Isn't that a private school?" Lavender wondered. Katherine scrunched her nose up.
"Yeah. You should have seen our uniforms." She shuddered. "They were pretty and everything but unnecessarily formal."
"Why did you come here?" Parvati asked and patted her on the back.
"My mom reckons I'm 'safer' here." She said. "I don't know why she's so fascist. Voldemort has no reason to kill me." Parvati and Lavender gasped at the name. Harry's interest in this conversation grew.
"You-know-who wants to kill you?" They chimed.
"Or so my mum says. She's really over protective of me." She said.
"What does your dad say?" Parvati asked.
"Well my step dad agrees, but I don't know about my dad. I've never even met him." She said, the cheerful attitude fading.
"Poor dear." Lavender said.
"I'm okay. I mean, my life is pretty good. My mom and her husband just had twins last year, Caroline and Elizabeth. I also have a younger half brother. His name is Cole." After she said that she just stopped talking again. Lavender and Parvati started gabbing away to her about all the 'cute boys' the school had and Harry soon found himself embarrassed and bored. He returned to Hermione and Ron's conversation. They were fighting already.
Harry rolled his eyes and decided to just stare into space. He remembered what Ron had said about Katherine having some sort of social problem. Harry didn't know if he agreed or not. He glanced over at her and saw that she saw looking very uncomfortable around Parvati and Lavender. She looked at them kindly and smiled slightly at something. Her gaze was suddenly fixed on Harry. Harry quickly looked back to Ron and Hermione, who had finally stopped arguing.
"You're awfully quiet tonight." Hermione said.
"Sorry." Harry said quickly. "I just not in a very chatty mood. Rather tired actually."
"Haven't you been getting sleep?" Hermione asked, concerned.
"Not lately. You know- dreams." Harry said coolly. Hermione looked a great deal less stern and rather sappy at that.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Harry." She said and looked at him, her eyes full of pity.
"Hermione, don't look at me like I'm a puppy with a broken leg. I'm fine, only a bad headache." Harry said with exasperation.
"You can get the headache relief pill from Madame Pomfrey, you know." Ron said.
"Yeah, but she takes the summers off." Harry said. "I'm not about to go snooping around in her cupboards." Ron laughed.
"Good point." He said.
"Hermione, you are going to love what I did to your dorm room." Harry said, changing the subject. Hermione looked at him very skeptically.
"What did you do to it?" She asked slowly. "Or do I not want to know?"
"No it looks really cool." Harry assured her.
"What did you to it?" Hermione repeated. Harry laughed.
"You'll have to wait. It looks really good. And it smells good to." He added as an afterthought.
"Define 'smells good.'" Hermione said, eyeing him.
"Um- a delicious essence?" Harry guessed. Hermione let out a noise of exasperation.
"You are impossible!" She whined.
"No, I am not." Harry said.
"Well then you can tell me what you did to our dorm room." Parvati and Lavender must have been listening in on them.
"Harry, did you redecorate our room?" Parvati asked and batted her eyelashes.
"In a way."
"Tell me!" Hermione said.
"You'll like it." Harry said.
"How do you know?"
"I know this because I'm amazing." Harry said.
"If you're amazing, I'm the Queen of England." Hermione said with a raised eyebrow.
"Touché." Harry said. They both laughed.
"So what did you do?" Lavender asked, blushing.
"That's for me to know, and you to find out." Harry said and stood up to leave.
"Harry, where are you going?" Hermione asked.
"To the common room. I'm exhausted. I wasted half the day begging Dumbledore to let me drive down here to pick you guys up in my car."
"You have a car?" Lavender and Parvati chimed.
"Yeah." Harry said. "Forest green Jeep, four-wheel drive, stick shift and all of the special gadgets in it." Harry couldn't help bragging about his car. It was one of his favorite possessions.
"You'll have to give us a ride sometime." Parvati said. Harry smiled.
"Sure." He left the table. He was walking down the halls he knew so well alone. Then he felt the presence of another person next to him. He turned his head and found himself facing the mysterious new girl.
"Here's some food for thought. Parvati and Lavender have the biggest crushes on you. Avoid them or pretty soon one of them is going to just kiss you for no reason." She said. She had a very pretty voice. Like silk. You could tell she was a singer. Harry laughed. "No, I'm serious." She said and looked at him with a half-serious, half-amused expression on her face.
"I'll take the advice." Harry said, wearing the same smile.
"This castle is huge. How am I supposed to find the breakfast table tomorrow?" She asked.
"Oh, just follow everybody else. It's not to hard to figure out after a while." Harry said.
"Okay."
"Have we met before?" Harry asked suddenly. "I have the strangest feeling I know you."
"Not to my knowledge." She said. They reached the fat lady.
"Hello dear boy." She said when she spotted Harry. "Have you gotten a new girlfriend already? She is very pretty."
"No, we aren't dating, ma'am." Harry said. He was about to say 'we're just friends', but Katherine seemed pretty keen on being solitaire. Harry thought it was a pretty face gone to waste. He couldn't understand why such a pretty, funny and graceful girl wanted to be so antisocial. He didn't dwell on the thought. "Pretty pink pansies."
"What was that?" Katherine asked Harry incredulously. The picture swung open.
"Password." Harry said with a shrug. He clambered through the portrait hole and yawned when he saw the sight of the common room. He walked over to the fireplace and collapsed into the cushy armchair. He sunk into the chair so much that only the upper half of Harry's face was showing. His eyes were glittering and a smile was on his face. The fire's heavenly smoke was putting him to sleep. Common fire, get warmer please? He asked the fire through the strange telepathic message that let him set things on fire. The fire was instantly warmer. Harry sighed. He was at peace right then. He was just thinking about how he couldn't wait for the Quidditch season to start again, when someone interrupted his thoughts.
"Okay Mr. Fire Power, turn down the smoke factor." Came Hermione's voice. Harry opened his eyes and glared at her.
"I have a name you know." He said.
"Harry, you are going to smoke us all out if you don't quit with the smoke." Ron said. Harry glared at him to.
"Fine." He said bitterly and told the smoke harshly to leave but kept the temperature.
"Much better." Ron said and coughed. "How can you breathe that stuff in?"
"It smells good." Harry said and shrugged. Ron rolled his eyes.
"Whatever." He said.
"I'm going to see what Harry did to my room." Hermione said and trooped up the stairs heading to the girl's dormatories. Parvati and Lavender came in shortly after and followed her. They heard a little squeal of joy from the room. The three Gryffindor girls reappeared by Harry.
"That is so pretty Harry!" Lavender said.
"I told you, you would like it." Harry said and folded his arms. Harry had taken all of the rose chains he had made the last year and had put them on the girls' beds.
"How long did that take you?" Parvati asked.
"Not long at all. I made those last year with all the roses I got for my funeral, but I didn't want roses in my room for very long, way to girlie. I thought you three would like them."
"They are awesome, Harry." Hermione said. "And you are right, it does make it smell good."
"Never doubt the power of roses." Harry muttered to Ron. Ron grinned.
"So do you know what we're doing in classes this year?" Parvati asked.
"What? Oh- they're really going to be stressing anti dark arts this year from what I've heard. I'm with you guys again this year. They figured I could just sit in on the lessons. And Professor Tool is still here."
"No way! We actually had a teacher that lasted more that one year?" Ron said. "I'm impressed."
"So was I."
"If only she was nicer." Lavender said. "But at least she isn't creepy like the rest of our old teachers." The whole group shuddered.
"I think I'm gonna call it a night." Harry said.
"Me too." Hermione said and yawned. "Got to be ready for classes tomorrow." Harry and Ron groaned and rolled their eyes. Harry walked off to his room and changed quickly into his pajamas. He jumped into bed and fell asleep quickly. He was much happier with his friends back with him.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Harry woke with the sun the next morning. That was the bad thing about sleeping next to a window. He got up and got dressed in his bed with the curtains pulled around the bed. He walked down the stairs into the common room, ready to spend a good hour sitting by the fire, bored to tears. But to his surprise, there were a lot of people in the common room.
"There you are!" Hermione said and ran up to him. "Where have you been?"
"Asleep?"
"How could you sleep through a thing like that happened?"
"What happened?" Hermione pointed up to the rafters. There was a message written up on the ceiling in some sort of strange glowing red paint.

The royal court will soon be completed. Royal Sorcerer and Sorceress train well so you may join

"Who wrote that?" Harry asked, but he had the horrible feeling that he already knew.
"They don't know." Hermione said. "They can't get it to disappear either." Harry looked hard at the ink on the ceiling. Something about it wasn't right. The way it was glowing reminded him of something…fire!
"It's not ink." Harry said.
"Don't be stupid, of course it's ink." Hermione said.
"It's fire, can't you tell?" Harry said.
"Well…now that you mention it…" Hermione said slowly. Harry told the freaky fire on the ceiling to leave without a trace. There was a booming crack that echoed through the room and it disappeared.
"I told you." Harry said.

"Harry wake up! WAKE UP!" Ron shook Harry awake. Harry opened his eyes and glared at him. He had had the weirdest dream about- well he couldn't even put a finger on what it was about. It made no sense. "Come on! We have to get to breakfast!"
"Oh!" Harry said and climbed out of bed.
"I'll meet you down there." Ron said and left the room. Harry dressed in silence and jogged down the stairs to meet Ron and Hermione.
"Well hey there sleepyhead." Hermione said.
"Hey." Harry said and yawned.
"You okay?" Hermione asked.
"What? Yeah. I had the strangest dream though. In the dream I woke up at five o'clock in the morning and got dressed and went down into the common room only to find that everybody was already awake to. Then you told me off for sleeping through something and pointed to the ceiling. There was this weird message written on the ceiling. It said, ' The royal court will soon be completed. Royal Sorcerer and Sorceress train well so you may join.' I realized that it was written in fire. I put it out and we were just discussing who we thought wrote when he woke me up."
"I had that same dream too." Said a voice from behind them. They all jumped and turned around to see Katherine walking behind them. "The only difference in mine was that I was watching you two the entire time." They stared at her for a second.
"You're joking, right?" Harry asked.
"Do you see me laughing?" Katherine said.
"No." Harry said and sighed.
"I've heard of this before." Hermione said suddenly. "You know sharing a dream. It means that you both have the same mission, but that just doesn't make any sense now does it?"
"Not really." Harry and Katherine said together. They stared at each other, not knowing whether to trust the other person or not.
"Well it could make sense, I suppose- but that would mean you would have to be-" Harry was going to say 'you would have to be an heir of some royal sorcerer or sorceress' but the look in her eyes told him not to say it. Or did she actually say it? Harry couldn't tell.
They paused for a few seconds when they reached the picture of Merlin. Harry stared at his ancestor.
"You are the heir." Merlin said.
"Yes." Harry said. He had had this conversation with Merlin several times.
"I believe you now." The picture said.
"Good."
"Use the necklace." Merlin said.
"What?"
"You heard me. Use the necklace."
"I already have." Harry said.
"Not like that. Not to save yourself. Use it for it's other purpose." Merlin said. Harry exchanged confused glances with the rest of the group.
"I do believe you've lost me." Harry said to the picture.
"Come to me sometime, and we will discuss it." Merlin said and walked out of the picture and into the one that was painted of Harry. They walked away. "Is it just me or are all the paintings in this castle crazy? I mean, look at Sir Cadogan! The fat lady too. She's not particularly sane either. And have you ever tried talking to the painting of me? Whoever did it must have portrayed me as some kind of player. You know like having nine girlfriends at a time and some sort of master prankster as well."
"Well, I've said a few words to it before and you didn't seen that different." Ron said. Harry punched him in the shoulder.
"I resent that."
"No you don't."
"Okay, we're not going to get into that this year." Harry said.
"Thank you. I was just going to say that." Hermione said. Katherine had fallen back from the little group and was now staring at the picture of a witch that was hanging not to far away from Merlin's. The picture was of Cyrena, one of the first women witches. Cyrena was a beautiful witch with dark hair and dark eyes. She didn't talk much, but just sat in her frame for good chunks of the day letting passerby marvel at her majestic beauty.
Katherine felt their eyes on her and quickly followed them down the hall to breakfast.