Disclaimer : I do not own Harry Potter or any of his friends. If you recognize it, I, most assuredly, don't own it.I probably don't even own the species of my main character, flighty creature. But I do own the creation Scaryna Taleshade-Cresent, her step-father and parents,and her bird Cravyn. I'm not sure about the snake, hissing is hard to understand. Future characters will be regarded when the appear.

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The last two weeks of summer passed in a chaotic blur for Scaryna. Luckily, her step-father, A.K.A., the Usurper, wanted her to make a good impression of him, so he kept his hands off her.

The morning started with her being woken by her house elves, Dela, Kerry and Mika. They were subdued, as usual. Her step-father had nearly beaten all the spunk out of them. They brought her breakfast while she showered before disappearing back to the "servants quarters." More like slave's chambers.

After dressing she braided her clean, for once, two-toned hair. Not bothering to include her reverse-coloured bangs in the braid, she tucked those behind her ears. Then she sat down at the small side table for her breakfast and to read The Daily Prophet.

Scaryna purchased her paper using her allowance from her step-father, whom she "fondly" called the Usurper, without his knowledge. She did many things without his knowledge. Including finding the passage way behind a bookcase into the library he had closed off... Being good friends with the house elves... And starting up a letter correspondence with some wizard investigators and private eyes to look into what really happened to her real parents. That one was a doozy.

Today was September 1st. Yay... School... She was actually really excited about finally going to Hogwarts.

She finished up her breakfast and finished her once over of the contents of the Prophet. Nothing important. Just more stuff about Sirius Black, the escapee from Azkaban. Of course, that's so much more important than how the bugger got out in the first place. Aren't those Dementors actually supposed to do something besides float around and scare the sht out of people?

Scaryna snorted, finally making her way to finishing getting dressed and making her way downstairs. It was only around 9am. She had to be at King's Cross in London by 11am.

Arriving at the landing on the second floor, Scaryna greeted one of her house ghosts before striding down the hall to her step-father's study. He deigned himself too worthy to actually read anything for "fun" but he decided that he did, indeed, need a study.

"I'm ready to go, sir." Came Scaryna's voice from the doorway. She never entered any of her step-father's rooms. Especially not the ones he invited others to. His "friends" creeped her out. Especially the guys with the holsters poking out from beneath their sport jackets.

Her step-father, whose full name was Dale Taleshade, looked up at her. "Are you now? Well, ring the bell and get one of the servants to get your trunk... And the animals cages and things. We were sent a... a portkey to get to the mainland."

It amused Scaryna. That even after all this time, Dale was still uneasy about "magical crap," as he called it. That was kind of a good thing. He'd never test her on her summer homework... And he'd never know anything about how anyone had actually managed to get into his expensive cigar stash and ruined the whole lot.

After getting Dela to fetch her things, Scaryna and her step-father went into the main floor parlor. Dale was nervous about the magic thing, but he refused to let his step-daughter notice his weakness, which made it all the more apparent to her. He really was a moron sometimes.

Dela had shrunk Scaryna's things to pocket size, and had also lightened them so they wouldn't rip the stitching. Scaryna thanked her discreetly, as to not draw attention to the detail, and tucked the parcel away

Dale read out the instructions that had been sent with the portkey. If more than one person was traveling with one portkey, they had to touch the object at the same time, etc. It was tedious and wasted ten minutes of Scaryna's valuable young life. The amusing thing is, I've already read up on portkeys. I knew it was probably the easiest way to get a student from out of the backwoods of Scotland and into London, mainland England.

When Dale had finally decided he had worked himself into enough of a panic, he told his step-daughter that the note that was sent with the portkey said that she was to go on her own. He then followed that up with some snide remarks about magic and it's uses in general, before ranting on about the portkey itself. Which had been made from an old latin textbook. Somehow, he found fault in that.

Scaryna waited for a good twenty-or-so minutes before she asked if she was allowed to leave yet. Stupid thing to say, very stupid thing to ask! She berated herself. Her step-father almost back-handed her for her impertinence before remembering that she was going somewhere public, and he needed her to make a good impression of him in the magical world. Even if he hated it's very existence with his very being. It was still full of people with opinions, and opinions matter.

"You spoiled little bh. If you ever say something like that to me again, I will hit you. And I won't care where you're going. And everyone will know how worthless you are."

Staying completely straight-faced, Scaryna walked silently to an end table, where she picked up the portkey. As soon as she touched it, she felt something pull her person from a place behind her navel forward into oblivion. She tried to fight at first, but her hands were firmly planted to the book, and they could not be removed.

Only moments after the sensation started, it stopped. Scaryna found herself holding the book in the middle of an almost empty train station. The gate number directly above her said Platform 9¾. Well. At least I can say I'm not late. And she wasn't, it was still only 9:45am.

At precisely 10:00am, a bright red steam engine rolled into the station. Painted across the side was the train's name, The Hogwarts Express. Of course, the biggest magical school in England would have it's own train, wouldn't it?

An attendant helped her store her now-full-sized luggage away and helped settle her pets in her chosen compartment. When he had left to help the other early arrivals, Scaryna settled herself down for something she hadn't done in a long while. She cried.

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Please RR... I'm fairly new to the writing fanfiction world, so updates might be a little weird. Thanks for reading. -