Disclaimer: Unfortunately I am not JK Rowling, and therefore do not own Harry Potter and any other characters from the books. Raven is however mine, if you wish to use her in a fic please contact me at heartagram@btinternet.com so we can discuss her, she is my baby.

Warnings: This fic contains graphic descriptions of self mutilation and rape in later chapters. I advise you not to start reading if this will offend you, it is vital to the plot.

Second Chance

Chapter One: The New Girl.

Somewhere far across the moor a wolf howled as the full moon reappeared fron behind a cloud. Any human watching the small rocky outcrop in the middle of this particular field would find the presence of a young girl, lying flat out on her back at 3am slightly unnerving, but the girl seemed totally unperturbed by the knowledge that werewolves resided in the nearby forest during the nights of the full moon. It was the early hours of the morning of September the first, and in a few hours she knew that the freedom she had become accustomed to would be removed, so she was spending the last free hours roaming the night freely. She had never forgotten the old man's promise to let her finish her education when the time was right, but had begun to feel like everyone else had.

From inside a pocket of her baggy jeans she pulled out a thin strip of wood, approximately 10 inches long, and watched the moonlight glint off its polished surface. This wand hadn't been used in a couple of decades, but its power remained, waiting to be unleashed yet again. A sad smile passed over the girl's thin features and she sat up, stretching her neck slightly. Her long, thin fingers ran their way through her ebony hair as she leaped gracefully from the rock and disappeared into the night.

***

The platform was heaving with both students and parents as Harry, Ron and Hermione passed through the barrier onto platform 9 ¾. They glanced up at the clock, and seeing that they had only three minutes until the departure of the scarlet engine hastily boarded the train to stow their luggage, before waving madly out of the windows to Mr and Mrs Weasley. The panicked dash to the platform had left Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny breathless, and they struggled to recover their breath as they began the hunt for vacant seats.

As the train finally left London, the group were forced to take seats in an already occupied compartment, with a girl none of them had seen before, but who seemed too old to be in the lower years of the school. At Ginny's polite enquiry of "Do you mind if we sit here?", the only response was a loud grunt and voilent nod of the head towards the unoccupied seats. The stranger had one of the weirdest appearences ever sported by a Hogwarts student. Her eyebrow and nose were pierced, while both ears sported two normal pairs of earrings and a random collection of metal bars and spikes. Hermione stared for a moment before turning away, knowing only someone in the Muggle world would have performed such body modifications. Ron, however, had never seen anything like it before, and was utterly amazed at the vast collection of metal that decorated the girl's face. Her hair was a shiny ebony, with the exception of two prominent pink streaks at the front. Luckily the girl seemed engrossed in a Muggle rock music magazine, and was listening to music at extreme volumes via a Walkman. Her clothing consisted of a black short sleeved t-shirt that appeared to represent a band called "Soil" worn over a long sleeved white t-shirt. Her wrists were decorated with many bracelets, ranging from cheap plastic beads to long metal spikes. Her jeans, although fitted around the waist and hips, were far too large around her legs and contained so many pockets that Harry wondered if she had ever filled them all. Even with all this attention the girl seemed blissfully unaware of the scrutiny her fellow students were giving her.

A couple of hours into the journey, the witch with the food trolley arrived as the stranger was changing CDs. Hermione and Harry had spent half an hour explaining to Ron and Ginny just how she was listening to music from bits of shiny plastic. When all five people in the compartment had bought suffiecient snacks to see them through the journey the new girl went to put her earphones back in, but halted with the arrival of Neville Longbottom.

"Where do I know your face from?"

Neville gulped, looking positively petrified clutching Trevor the toad tightly to his chest.

"Oh my God! I've just realised how rude I've been. I'm so sorry, my name's Gabriella Black, but my mates just call me Raven. The hair you see, along with the surname." The five puzzled faces relaxed a little, "I hung around with some strange people, what can I say?" She smiled at the group of Gryffindors before rummaging in a tattered canvas bag for a different CD.

"Why do you have Muggle music? Are you Muggle born?"

Raven laughed a little, "No, far from it in fact. Guess I've just been festering in the Muggle world for too long. My father was killed before I was born from what I've been told. As for my mother, she abandoned me when I was about 4. Didn't exactly fit in with her lifestyle. So I ended up in a Muggle orphanage, went to school with Muggle children, even took a couple of years out to work with Muggles after I did the equivalent of my OWLs. So here I am at Hogwarts, time to do some more studying."

Harry was fascinated by this story. He had never met another witch or wizard born to magical parents, but raised in the Muggle world. Hermione jabbed him hard in the ribs, and seeing Raven's questioning face realised he had been asked something.

"Sorry, was daydreaming for a minute there. What were you saying?"

Hermione sighed irritably, "Raven was asking where you grew up. We've already answered."

Harry took a deep breath, "I've been living with my Aunt and Uncle since my parents were murdered by Voldemort when I was a baby, then a couple of months ago my Godfather was killed by a Deatheater. Sirius Black, you may have heard of him."

Raven dropped her bag in shock and choked on the chocolate frog she was eating. "Sorry to hear that. If you want to talk come find me any time."

The compartment fell silent, noone knowing really what to say. Everyone was looking at the floor, or their fingernails. Nobody noticed the tear slipping silently down Raven's cheek.

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AN: sorry it's a short one, I have more written and that seemed the best place to end the first chapter. Won't be long till the next one though. In the meantime please review.