"To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bed, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life…" –Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.
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Where You Belong
Chapter 3
Andrea stepped into the Slytherin common room and all activity and noise stopped as everyone turned to stare at her. Andrea in turn stood where she was her eyes searching the crowd picking out present and future death eaters. The common room probably would have stayed like that had Lucius and his followers not approached her.
"Welcome to Slytherin, the best house in all of Hogwarts. I'm Lucius Malfoy. These are my followers Bellatrix and Narcissa Black, Rodolphus Lestrange, Severus Snape, Regulus Black and Augustus Rookwood."
"Pleasure, I'm Andrea Taylor as you already know. Now could one of you be so kind as to show me where the dorms are? I'm rather tired and need to sleep." Andrea replied.
"Sure we'll show you right after we've had a little chat." Bellatrix responded.
"Really can't we save all this chatting until later, I'm really not up to it right now."
"It would be rude to leave before we had our chat with you and being rude to us puts you on our bad side. You don't want to be on our bad side Taylor." Whispered Augustus threateningly.
"It'll only be a few minutes of your time; you'll surely be awake for a few more minutes." Narcissa added in a sickeningly sweet voice.
"There's no chance of getting out of this is there?" Andrea mumbled more to herself before responding to the nods of agreement from the awaiting group. "Fine what do you want to chat about?" Andrea snapped more then a little annoyed.
"Why don't we move to a more…secluded area?" Severus answered moving away from the group to a dark coroner of the room.
Andrea reluctantly followed the rest of the group realizing that she should have asked the headmaster for a switch immediately.
An hour and a half later Andrea was finally allowed to sleep as she was drifting in and out of sleep during their questioning. The group was far from finished questioning her but they knew that she wasn't focusing so they decided to continue the chat tomorrow. The chat wasn't really a chat though it was more like a marathon of twenty questions for Andrea where she had to think quickly and come up with a story for her life and how she ended up here. The only problem was that Andrea hoped that she could remember it all.
She made up a story about how she was born in England but orphaned at the age of four. She was placed in an orphanage until six where a wizarding family adopter her and took her to America until she ran away from them two months ago to return to England and find what was left of her family. She also added that Taylor wasn't her real surname but that her adoptive family had changed it and she couldn't remember her real surname. As she drifted into a peaceful slumber she realized that there were many holes in her life story and that she needed to fill Dumbledore in on what she was telling the students about herself.
* * *
Andrea breathed a sigh of relief as she was finally able to lose her questioning team of Slytherins to see the headmaster. She had received a note that morning at breakfast telling her to visit his office at two o'clock and two o'clock couldn't come any faster for her. All morning she had been questioned by practically everyone she passed and was grateful to get away from it for a while.
"Come in." Dumbledore called out as Andrea knocked on his office door. "Ah, Andrea right on time dear please have a seat."
"Thank you professor."
"I realized last night that we didn't cover what story you should give everyone for you late arrival to Hogwarts…"
"I've already taken care of that professor." Andrea interrupted.
"Very well, would you mind retelling it to me?"
Andrea took a breath and began the story of her life all over again. When she was finally done Dumbledore helped her fix the last few holes that were still there.
"Well that saves us a lot of time here today. The last order of business I have is this." Dumbledore announced as he pulled a vile full of lime green liquid out of his desk drawer. "This is a memory blocker; it will keep you from reveling too much no matter what the person uses on you. It'll even block veritaserum."
"Will I still have my memory?" Andrea asked worriedly
"Yes but you will be unable to talk about them. Now here you go."
Andrea took the vile from Dumbledore, looked at it for a moment before uncorking it and downing it so quick that she barely had time to register its slightly bitter taste.
"Well I believe that's all so…"
"Excuse me professor there is one thing I wanted to ask you."
"What can I do for you?"
"I was wondering if it was possible to be resorted."
"Why do you ask that?"
"Because I don't fit with my house."
"You've only been there a day…"
"I know but my mood last night is what caused the hat to place me in Slytherin. I really don't fit."
"Well my dear why don't you stay for a while and try it and if you still feel like you don't fit I'll see what I can do for you."
"Thank you professor."
Andrea silently left the headmasters office knowing that he was right that she just needed to give the Slytherins a chance but at the same time she knew that it would be one of the toughest things in her entire life.
Albus Dumbledore sighed as he watched Andrea Taylor leave his office. He knew for a fact that there was no way to get her back to her own time before a significant amount of time had passed. In fact he knew that it was virtually impossible for him to get her back at all, they just hadn't gotten that far in their research in time travel. Dumbledore didn't have the heart to tell the poor girl this news so he did what he hoped was the next best thing. The potion Andrea had taken would slowly erase her memory of her previous life and the people she knew. She would retain her knowledge of spells and what not and things here and there would remind her of things that she would be unable to remember but she would be able to live her life. As time passed the potion would wear off allowing her memory to return but only after what was to happen had happened, he didn't want her trying to alter history. He hoped that she would be able to understand why he had done what he did and not be too upset with him. Although somewhere in the back of his mind he had a feeling that she would thank him some day, he wasn't really sure if that was just his wishful thinking or not.
* * *
Andre didn't care what time it was she needed to get out. It was Sunday, she had only been there two days and already she was tempted to bed Dumbledore to let her switch houses. The only reason Andrea hadn't gone begging was that she knew he wanted her to wait awhile and wanted to prove that she could do it without running to Dumbledore everyday. She resolved that she would do it but that it would be so much easier if she could avoid the rest of her house. With these thoughts Andrea swiftly left the Slytherin common room, the protests of her fellow housemates falling on her deaf ears. Although curfew was still fairly far off Andrea still silently and cautiously stalked the halls not wanting to run into too many people.
* * *
James, Remus, Sirius, and Peter were silently, or as silently as four 16 year old boys under one invisibility cloak could be, creeping through the halls of Hogwarts. Curfew was an hour or more gone but the boys didn't care they were busy running around setting up their latest prank. As they turned the corner to a long back hallway, that was rarely used as the classrooms were abandoned, they realized that they were not the only ones running around the school after curfew. The hallway was lined with floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the lake and the whomping willow but no one ever used it because it was out of the way. The marauders only used this hallway because it housed one of Hogwarts many secret passages. Halfway down the hallway somebody stood looking out across the grounds. Normally the marauders would have moved on but curiosity got the best of them and they crept closer until they were six feet away from the figure.
Once they had stopped moving the figure moved allowing the crescent moon the throw its glow across the figures face allowing the boys to see who it was. What shocked them all was that the figure was the new sixth year Slytherin Andrea. Now their curiosity was really peaked wanting to know why the new student was out so late and in such a secluded area. They realized that she was in her own world and thought that she was alone so they decided to stay and watch her for a bit.
Andrea was staring out the windows at nothing really as her mind wandered over all that happened over the past few days. As her thoughts wandered she realized that some of the details of her life before falling into the past were a little fuzzy but she thought that it was probably due to all of her recent excitement. Her thoughts slowly drifted to a song that expressed how she felt and before she knew it she was singing out loud to herself and the empty night air.
What she didn't know was that the marauders were six feet away and listening to every word she uttered.
What have I done?
What have I done?
How could I be so blind?
All is lost, where was I?
Spoiled all, spoiled all
Everything's gone all wrong
What have I done?
What have I done?
Find a deep cave to hide in
In a million years they'll find me
Only dust…
But I never intended all this madness, never
And nobody really understood, how could they?
That all I ever wanted was to bring them
something great
Why does nothing ever turn out like it should?
Well what the heck, I went and did my best
And, by God, I really tasted something swell
And for a moment why, I even touched the sky
And at least I left some stories they can tell, I did
And for the first time since
I don't remember when
I felt just like my old self again…
Andrea trailed off leaving the rest of the song unsung as she realized that besides not fitting with her house mates that she felt like she belonged and that thought confused her even more.
The marauders in the meantime were unsure of what to make of Andrea's song that she sang out. They had no idea what she was talking about but whatever it was they had a feeling that it couldn't be good. They carefully crept away from her back towards the short cut and left her to her silent musings as they headed back to the Gryffindor common room, their prank all but forgotten.
Once they reached the common room they sat around the fire silently, each in their own thoughts until Sirius broke the silence.
"I don't like her, she's up to something." Sirius stated.
"Siri we don't know her so how can we know she's up to something?" Remus contradicted his friend.
"Moony we don't need to know her that song thing was enough to tell me that she's up to something." Sirius retaliated.
"I have to agree with Padfoot on this one Moony." James added.
"Look that song didn't say that she did anything wrong just that whatever she had planned hadn't gone the way she wanted it to. How can you mark her as 'evil' based on that?"
"Moony sometimes you're too forgiving." Sirius sighed. "Look let's not forget that she's in Slytherin and her attitude towards us the other night was exactly the type of reaction we'd expect from Slytherin death eaters so why should she be any different?"
"I don't know I…I just don't think that she's like the others." Remus defended.
"Don't worry Rem, give it a few days and you'll change your mind." James encouraged as the boys stood and headed up to bed.
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The song is from my favorite movie in the world – Nightmare Before Christmas.