The Forgotten Child Chapter: A Little Bit of Black

After Divinations, the group of Gryffindors headed down to lunch. Hermione joined them just outside of the Ancient Runes classroom, and politely inquired how Divinations went. She was a little surprised to note that nothing out of the ordinary happened with Lei, since weird things seemed to be following that girl, and even more shocked to find out that Trelawney had been fired.

"Yup, that old fraud's finally out of the Seeing business," Ron said, putting an emphasis on the word Seeing for dramatic effect. "The new professor's pretty nice, and right away she told us that she didn't think telling us our futures was a good way to start out the class."

"Well, she sounds sensible," Hermione said, righting her book bag on her shoulder, as it was sliding off. "You'll have to keep me updated on her progress, then."

Lei listened to the conversation without much interest, and quickly tuned out and instead took to looking around at the other students milling around in the hallways. She was still a little upset about the incident with Snape earlier, but most of it was anger at herself for loosing her temper like she had. It was true that he had been the one to loose his temper with her first, but that didn't make what she'd done and said okay. She felt a little bit guilty for being so mean to him, but a part of her kept defiantly convincing her that he deserved it. Sighing, Lei wrapped a strand of hair around her finger, admiring the shiny redness of it. She'd always been rather proud of her unique red hair. But something caught her eye. Pulling the strand of hair closer to her face, she noticed something rather odd: toward the middle of the strand, there was a group of black hairs, barely noticeable. She stared at the group with such an odd expression that the others finally noticed her.

"Lei, what are you doing?" asked Harry, looking at her strangely. She blushed and let go of her hair; she was suddenly aware of how weird she must have looked, standing in the hallway examining a strand of her hair.

"Um, nothing. Let's hurry down to the Great Hall. I'm starving!" She started walking faster, not because she was hungry, but to avoid the weird looks she was getting. People must have thought she was insane, which she might very well be. Honestly, imagining black hair, she scolded herself, walking even faster and weaving her way in and out of the crowds of students.

"I'm telling you, Harry, I don't think she's all there in the head," Ron whispered to Harry, watching as Lei walked quickly in front of them, her hair swaying with her movements. "She's an odd one, she is."

"I have to admit, she can be a bit…bizarre sometimes," Harry admitted slowly.

"Well, obviously she's in shock," Hermione proclaimed, still fussing with her book bag. Finally she removed a few books from it, and it finally stayed on her shoulder. Hugging the books to her chest, she elaborated at the boys' confused looks, "The family she's known all her life just died, and she's in a completely different world with people she's never met swarming all around her. Clearly something like that would put someone in shock."

"I guess that's true," Harry said, nodding. "Yeah. She's just in shock."

"I still don't trust her," Ron grumbled moodily under his breath. His friends both rolled their eyes at him.

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That night, Hermione forced Crookshanks to sleep out in the common room, so that the girls and Piccola could maybe get some sleep. The small black kitten jumped up onto Lei's bed and began kneading the duvet with her claws, turning in circles. Piccola continued to do this for about five minutes until she finally got comfortable and laid down at Lei's feet. Absently, Lei reached over to pat her kitten on the head, causing Piccola to purr happily.

"Hermione, do you think I'm…. weird?" Lei asked when Hermione emerged from the bathroom, ready for bed.

Startled, Hermione asked, "Why would I think that?"

"I dunno. I guess I feel weird, mostly because of everything that's been happening lately." She tried to shrug nonchalantly, but it didn't turn out very well. "I mean, what with me freezing things all the time, and then that whole thing with Snape…oh, I don't know. I just think I'm weird."

"Everyone's weird in their own ways," Hermione said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. "I don't really think you're weird just because some strange occurrences keep happening around you. It's not your fault you have these powers that you can't control. You shouldn't feel weird for that."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Lei agreed, staring at the ceiling. She sighed. "Maybe I feel so weird because I'm not sure how I should act. This whole thing is peculiar to me, because you and Harry and Ron are such close friends, and I feel like I'm kind of intruding on your friendship, demanding attention or something."

"Don't be silly! We're glad to have you here. Just ignore Ron and his stupid comments about you being crazy. If anyone's crazy around here, it's him. We're going to help protect you from whatever it is that keeps trying to attack you, so don't worry."

Smiling, she said sincerely, "Thanks, Hermione, you've helped a lot."

"Good then. I'm glad I can help someone feel better," the other girl mumbled sleepily, climbing into bed. "Goodnight, Lei. See you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Hermione."

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The next morning, Harry, Ron, and Ginny sat around the common room, waiting for Hermione and Lei to make an appearance. Crookshanks was crouched at the bottom of the staircase that led to the sixth year girls' dormitories, his yellows eyes glowing, as he, too, waited for the door to open so he could get inside to Piccola.

Finally growing impatient, Ron got up from the chair he'd been sitting in and called up the stairs, "Oi! What's taking so long up there? We're getting hungry out here, and if you don't come down soon, we're leaving without you!"

Ginny frowned at her brother. "That's not a very nice thing to say, Ron---" she began to say, but she was cut off by a loud shriek from the girls' dorms.

Harry shot over to the bottom of the staircase so fast that Crookshanks started to hiss at him. "What's going on up there?" he yelled. "What happened?"

The door swung open to reveal a rather out of breath Hermione, looking utterly shocked. "It's Lei---she---her---" She shook her head, unable to find the words she was looking for.

Suddenly Lei appeared beside Hermione, trembling. Everyone in the common room stared at her, mouths hanging open in shock.