Chapter 4

"We're already down by one." Started Malcolm. "How do we know she didn't just miss the train?"

"We don't. And we don't have a last name. I can ask around the Gryffendor tower for info on her though, alright?" Rianna questioned.

"She was killed by him! I just know it!" Shouted Tarina.

"Don't yell it! If we start acting weird and shouting stuff like that, everyone will think us crazy. We don't need that." Tommy shushed the panicked girl, trying his best to not be mean to her, which Rianna beamed at him for.

"Also, do we want to go to Dumbledor?" Ria thought aloud.

"Ha! Head of Gryffendor?" Malcolm scoffed.

"Yeah! But he'll listen!" She hissed back. It was odd coming from Ria. A sound you'd never expect her to be able to perform.

Tommy glared at Malcolm, and looked at Ria, "Alright, I'll go with you to talk to him.. and you two would do best to do the same."

"Right.." Malcolm replied, rolling his eyes.

Tarina just looked confused through most of this, but she nodded at the prospect of talking to someone who would listen.

Now, all four of them have been standing in the middle of the compartment arguing, and suddenly the train stopped. All four flew, oddly enough in separate directions.

DREAM

"Ow..." Tarina mumbled. "That hurt.."

"Save it." Tommy snapped. "I think it knocked us out."

"Oh? And why, O-Smart-One, would you think that?" Malcolm snorted.

"Because... That's my house.." Rianna, who was facing towards the other three, and in a different direction than anyone, whispered ominously, while pointing behind them all.

As one the others turned, seeing the outside of Ria's house. Ria looked anxious, the others intrigued.

"This is where you live, Ria?" Tommy, who was the first to speak, said.

"Kinda.." She replied.

"Kinda?" Scoffed Malcolm.

"It's my house, but it's different than usual.. just... not the same.." Ria was now sounding alarmingly upset. "I'm not going in there.." She finished, shaking her head.

"Well, I am." Malcolm said, as if acting daringly.

"Don't... Please, Mal, don't..." Tarina started.

"Who says you can call me that? And I'm going." And he began walking towards the house in a defying manner.

"Fine.." Ria started, "Then I'll go.."

"ooo! Don't, Ria! Please!" Tarina whined.

"I'm sorry, Tari, but I know the inside of the house the best, and I don't want anyone to be separate from everyone. Alright?"

She nodded slightly. "Alright.. I guess I'll come too.."

"Kay.." Ria smiled at the Hufflepuff girl.

Tommy didn't say anything, but nodded to Ria, so she knew that if she went, he would. She smiled at him, and they followed after Malcolm, who was at the door now.

They walked in, one by one. A big mistake.

Tarina, Tommy, and Malcolm were all standing in a fairly large room, that looked as if it might've been white at one time. There was an empty fireplace on the far end of the room, with a few worn chairs and a couch nearby.

"Where are we?" Tarina asked, being the first to speak.

"Looks like Ria's house, just somewhat older, and like it hasn't been used in a while.." Tommy replied, oddly enough, not snappily.

"Where is Rianna?" came Malcolm.

Tommy and Tari looked around. Tari then started to whimper. "Where is she? I thought she was supposed to be here with us!"

"She probably got sent to another area of the house. We should look for her.." Tommy decided for the group. The he began to walk toward the stairs.

The other two followed.

Rianna looked around, and instantly noticed her lack in companions. "Oh great."

That's when the children's voices started up. "One,two..."

Ria sighed and ventured further into her house. It looked just like it always had, normal and clean. Unlike the others who saw it as old and filthy.

"First to my room, then the library, then the kitchen." She mumbled.

And so she walked, to her room. Nothing of interest. The library. Again nothing. So back down to the kitchen she went...

OUT OF DREAM

Back on the train, however, things were a bit different. James and Sirius had started looking for Rianna, for she always came around about the time the lady with the trolley did, to tell them all the change into their robes. Today she hadn't. In fact, since they had gotten on the train she'd been missing.

What if something happened to her when the trained jerked to a stop for that new student.

So they began a search for her.

BACK IN DREAM

Tarina was now screaming her lungs off. They hadn't found Rianna yet. She was trying to get her attention.

Malcolm suddenly shout at her. "SHUSH! If you scream here you might scream out there!"

"I don't care!" She shouted back. "WHERE IS RIA?!"

"Tari, I want to find her too, but I'm not gunna risk anyone hearing us, and waking us up before we find her! What if she's in danger?" Tommy said, in a deadly and quiet voice.

Ria was just outside the kitchen. The children's voices had become so much louder! She opened the kitchen door...

OUT OF DREAM

Sirius heard the screaming, and started for the back compartment. He was almost running. He flung the door open and saw a group of kids from the school all lying there passed out.

A blonde girl lay in one area of the compartment, screaming. Rianna, and some other students they didn't know were also in this compartment.

James first went to Tarina and started to shake her awake.

BACK IN DREAM

Suddenly Tarina began to fade. The others watched, in surprise.

"Someone must have found us on the train!" Tommy all but yelled, smacking his forehead. But his hand never touched him, it was gone. He was disappearing as well.

"Great." Mumbled Malcolm, now the only one left. But the room was beginning to disappear, him as well.

She stepped inside the kitchen, where a girl, whom she was sure she recognized, was sitting. Her eyes were wide, staring behind Rianna at the door.

"Is something wrong?" Ria asked gently, knowing something was.

The girl opened her mouth, and began to talk. But Ria never heard the words. She, like the others, was awakened.

END OF DREAM

The first three sat on the floor, looking dazed and half asleep. Then all started when, as Ria was waking, she shouted, "NO!"

Everyone stared at her in shock. There were tears in her eyes, and she was more awake than anyone else. She just kept saying "No" though. What had happened to her?

Sirius and James were at Ria's side immediately.

"What's wrong?" James was asking.

"I have to go back to sleep!" She yelled. "Some ones in there!"

She knew her brother and his friends would not understand, but that Tommy, Tari, and Malcolm would.

"It was a dream." Sirius said to her, in an oddly soothing voice. Though Ria was not to be pacified.

"Sirius, James. Can you two do something for me? To prove it was just a dream?" When they both nodded, Ria continued, "Look for a girl, somewhere on this train, who is unconscious. Wake her up, understand?"

"This is stupid, Rianna." James replied, rolling his eyes.

"Please James! You said you'd do it already! She has..." And she gave a brief description. "...Ok?"

James sighed, and nodded. "Come on Sirius." He grabbed his friends arm and dragged him out.

As soon as they'd left, Ria laid back down. "She was scared. I'm going back in to find her again." With that, she closed her eyes.

In moments she was asleep....

The others had stayed quiet, until she had fallen asleep.

"She's crazy to go back for some girl she doesn't know." Malcolm scoffed.

"No, she's brave! A true Gryffendor!" retorted Tari.

"That's what I'm worried about." Murmured Tommy.

NEW DREAM

She reappeared in the dream just where she had disappeared.

The girl was gone, though.

"Great..." Rianna sighed. "I'll search, until the boys come back and wake me with either good, or bad, news."

So she ventured further into the kitchen, looking around for any sign of the other girl.

"Where do I know her from?" She thought. "Well, school. If only she'd been in school robes.."

She found the door to the outside of the house, and took it out. Their she saw the girl, laying on the grass with her eyes squeezed shut. A figure stood over her, long sharp knife like fingers on its right hand. It turned as she exited the building, and she saw a horribly burned man.

She shuttered, Then, pulling every ounce of bravery and whatnot she had and ran toward him, menacingly.

Luckily he fled. She didn't know what she'd do if he hadn't.

She reached the girl and quickly checked her for any marks. There where a few, but none lethal.

"You ok?"

The girls eyes flew open, and as she saw the passive girl above her, she relaxed.

"I... I think I'll be fine." She answered, standing. She would not take Ria's offered hand, as if she had fallen for a trick like that before.

After the girl had thoroughly studied Ria, she sighed.

"Who was that?" Ria inquired.

"I don't know. Who are you? Some kinda dream rescue squad person?"

"No. Rianna Potter. Little sister to the evil.. er.. famous James Potter."

The other girl laughed at that. "Well, that's one way to put it. Lirael..." She never got to her last name, for at that same moment, in the real world Sirius and James had found her and began to wake her.

"Or not.." Sighed Ria. "Lirael...."

She took out her hair pin, and pricked her finger, twice, winced and woke up.

END OF DREAM

Though her finger was bleeding, she was fine. Her hair had also fallen down, her hairpin on the floor.

"Found the girl, and she's awake now." Rianna started. "We have to find out where on the train she is!"

Unluckily it had been Sirius who had awaken her, and who she first saw.

As soon as Lirael saw him she smacked him and began to yell incoherint things, though if you caught some of the words it was about him leaving, abandoning her. And so on.

"HOW COULD YOU, SIRIUS?!" Unshed tears being held in her eyes.

Rianna burst in, having heard Sirius' name. "Lirael! Calm done! The whole train can hear you!"

"Lirael?" Sirius stammered.

"Yes! Lirael Black! Your little sister! You couldn't recognize me!" And the first tears began to fall.

"Sirius, James, leave!" Rianna ordered, resisting an urge to scream it.

They did not hesitate. They all but flew out of that compartment.

"So.. What was that about?" Ria asked, in a calming tone.

"I am Lirael Black. Younger sister to that jerk, Sirius. I've been in all sorts of different homes and such, as well as schools. When the last school kicked me out, the Headmaster here agreed to letting me join. It wasn't even my fault for getting kicked out last time! Anyway. I remember being young, and being left at some home, not my own. And the last person I saw was my older brother, Sirius, staring out the back of my parents old thing that passed as a car." she then sighed. "But I guess it isn't totally his fault, huh?"

"Sounds more like it's your parents problem, not his. Though don't hesitate to yell at him once in a while. He needs it. Oh! Don't let him know I said that!" Rianna said, adding the last part in a semi panicky voice.

Lirael laughed. "I won't... Right now."

Rianna glared at the other girl. It was only a half glare though, for she didn't really mean it. Lirael just grinned, like her brother would have.

Just then James' head poked in. "It safe yet?" He ventured, looking in Lirael's direction.

That's when Lirael noticed him. Her eyes went wide, and a silly smile crept onto her face. Then she shook her head. No way I'm falling for him that quickly! He's my brother's friend! She scolded herself, mentally.

Rianna nodded to her brother, and he and Sirius walked in.

Damn... I think I've already fallen, Lirael added to her thoughts, as James smiled in relief at the absence of yelling.

Rianna, on the other hand, was wanting out of the compartment suddenly. For realization had just hit her on one small fact... she may have gotten herself a boyfriend, whom she really liked, but she hadn't come close to getting over Sirius. She shook her head, and thought about Tommy.

"Hey.. I, uh, gotta get back to the others. Lirael, I think you should meet them, K!" And she grabbed Lirael's arm and took off in the direction of the back compartment.