"Harry?" A girl's voice called after a knock at the door. "Open up Harry, it's me Hermione."
Harry opened the door to find his two best friends looking in on him. "Hey. How'd you know I was here?"
"The manager told us. We just came in from shopping. You wouldn't believe how many books we need this year. Defense against the Dark Arts has four different books!" Hermione told him.
"And guess what Harry! Fred and George opened up a joke shop and you should see all the things they have! They're going to make a load of money off of kids that are here for school! Just wait, the teachers thought they were trouble when they went to Hogwarts!" Ron smiled.
"What's wrong Harry?" Hermione asked. "You're ghost white, and you're sweating. You look like you've seen a dementor."
Harry shuddered. "No, I've just had a dream. I've been dreaming like this for weeks, and it's hard to sleep. I always wake up in the middle of the night and I won't be able to get back to sleep again."
"What are you dreaming about?" Ron asked.
"I'm not sure, nothing really ever makes sense," He told them. He grabbed his list of supplies he needed out of his bag. "Anyway, I've got to go shopping too. And I want to go see Fred and George," He said, heading down the stairs. Hermione frowned for a moment, but then followed.
"Another Dumbledore. I swear this train only carries Dumbledore," Harry whined. Ron laughed.
"You guys should see the new girl! She's got to be insane, dressing like that," Neville said, sitting down next to Harry.
"There is lots of new girls, Neville. You have got to be specific," Hermione reminded him.
"But this girl isn't a first year, she can't be. She looks to be about eighteen," Neville protested.
"Well maybe she's our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Ron suggested.
"I hope not. She's almost scary. She has a pet bat!" Neville said. "And she knows Malfoy. She smiled at him when she got on the train. But she's sitting in her own cabin, by herself." "Have a chocolate frog, Neville," Harry said, handing him one. "I can't stand all the gossip that goes around on the train."
"I agree, Harry. I swear, I've never seen gossip go around faster than it does with Hogwarts students," Hermione stated.
The train came to a stop and the four students made their way off the train.
"Watch out! Stupid bloody fourth years," Ron called after two Slytherins pushed by him, making their way for the carriages.
"Draco's little followers. I don't know what they see in him, he's such a coward," Hermione said in disgust.
Harry looked around at the array of little wizards being pushed around in the crowd coming off the train. He found it hard to imagine he was that young once.
"Harry!" Hagrid yelled, waving.
"Hey, Hagrid," Harry waved back with broken enthusiasm. The closer he got to the world he once treasured so much, the more he remembered the events of the past year. And with every face he saw the face of the only family he had really known, who had been taken from him with little mercy. "Sirius..." He whispered. Then a flicker of gold caught his eye from the first year boats. He became fixated on the familiar mass of blond locks flowing down the back of a young girl in a dark blue dress. 'Could it be? Turn around...'
"Harry! What are you looking at, come on!" Ron pulled him onto the carriage. "Are you nuts?"
"I thought I saw someone I knew," Harry told him.
"How could you know a first year, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know, I guess I was mistaken."
The upper classmen talked as the first years nervously gathered at the front of the great hall. Dumbledore stood and called for the students attention. The room fell silent as all eyes directed to the headmaster. "Before our new students are sorted I would like to, as usual, make a few announcements. For the first year, you should know that the forest around the school is forbidden. I advise you to follow this rule as you most likely will not be happy with the things one encounters there. Secondly, I would like to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Eleanor Vortitcia." A woman in her mid thirties in a purple velvet robe, long plum colored hair and red framed cat's eye glasses stood up and smiled shyly before sitting back down at the student's applause. "Now, let the sorting begin," Dumbledore said before taking his seat. Students poured into the houses, everyone clapped, and it was just like every other year. Until one name caught Harry's attention.
"Endora Salmalin," Professor McGonagall called out. Harry stared as the girl from his reoccurring dreams stepped up to the sorting hat. The hat was placed on her head and it stayed there for a while. From experience Harry knew she was arguing with the hat over which house she would be put in. "Slytherin!" The hat finally called out.
"Slytherin?" Harry said aloud.
"Yeah, that's the girl that was sitting with Draco in the train. Made Patty Patil quite mad, she did. But I expect she's family, another blond lackey of Voldemort," Seamus commented.
Dumbledore stood up once more and cleared his throat. "And our last event of the evening is a little out of the ordinary. We have a student transferring into Hogwarts who has, up to this point, been tutored at home. She will be in sixth year, and I hope you will all help her get used to the school. Miss Ambrosia Xentharius." A girl with dark blood red hair just above the shoulders, black lipstick and eyeliner, and red raver goggles on her head sat on the stool and the sorting hat was placed on her head. A moment passed and Harry saw Draco raise an eyebrow. His curiosity soon turned to anger as the hat called out "Gryffindor!" The girl walked to the end of the table and sat at the very end, smiling weakly at her new classmates as they clapped for her.
"Did you see the look on Malfoy's face when she was sorted into Gryffindor?" Harry asked his friends as they ate.
"Of course Harry, don't you listen? I'm quite confused myself. Her last name - Xentharius. The Xentharius family is a quite old family of pure bloods. Most of the family has died out by now. The last members to die were Ezierial Xentherius and his wife Satyr Lunavenus-Xentherius. They died while trying to kill a family of wizards resisting Lord Voldemort. The only surviving members of the Xentherius family are the couple's daughter, Ambrosia, and her aunt, Terra," Hermione informed them.
"God, it's like you're reading out of a book," Ron said. Hermione shot him a death glance.
"So her parents were death eaters? That must be why Draco knows her. But why isn't she in Slytherin?" Harry asked.
"Well she wasn't raised by her parents," Ron commented.
"But how would Draco know her? Her aunt must also be a death eater," Hermione reminded them.
"No, my aunt is just in love with Lucious Malfoy." Ambrosia sat down next to Hermione.
Hermione looked horrified. "You heard me?"
"Well I was walking by, and I heard my name, and when I tuned in you were telling a condensed version of my family history."
"I... I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it badly," Hermione apologized, her face bright red.
"It's alright. Anyways, my aunt was Lucious's best friend at Hogwarts. I always tell her she's in love with him, but she always denies it," Ambrosia giggled. "We visit them all the time. They always try to get me to make friends with Malfoy, but he's all too self involved for me."
"Trust me, we know," Ron told her.
"I've heard. Draco doesn't ever shut up about mudblood lover Harry Potter this, and mudblood Hermione that, and no Malfoy can ever go a half hour without badmouthing the Weasly family. I swear they just don't have enough in their own life so they need to talk about others. It makes his mum and dad feel important, it reminds them of the old days."
"They talk about me that much?" Ron asked.
"Well, I might be overdoing it, but it's quite a lot. Anyways, my aunt says that your dad's great. She also studies muggles, but independently."
"Your aunt studies muggles and Lucious doesn't hate her?'' Hermione asked.
"Well they've been friends forever. She was a Slytherin. I'm the first of my family to be anything else, really. I think it's hilarious. Anyways, he couldn't hate her if he tried. His wife does though, but she doesn't admit to it."
Harry was in a daze. He looked down at his hands in his lap. 'I hate all this trying to look happy buisness,' He thought, 'But I couldn't deal with their sympathy if they gave it to me.' His eyes stung with the need to break down and cry. 'Sirius... It's all my fault.'