((Authors note: This chapter is going to be short, since I want to give the infamous Sorting a chapter all its own. Thanks everyone for your comments and for falling out of your chairs for me. It makes me feel all tingly inside! 3))
Chapter Four
Finally the train rolled into Hogsmeade Station. Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Luna all quickly left the train, though they eventually got separated in the crowd. Luna and Ginny went off to meet up with their fifth year friends, and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville stuck together. Harry didn't mind the separation- it meant that all his newfound relatives probably wouldn't be able to find him. He and his friends quickly located one of the thestrals-pulled carriages, Harry glancing warily around for the 'Riddle children'. Once seated, he leaned back and let out a long sigh, glad that at least the carriage ride would be normal.
But none of this story can be normal, now, can it?
"Harry!" a cheery voice shouted as the carriage door was flung open.
"Hi, Angel," Harry said grudgingly, his one light heart quickly deflating. "I thought you found another carriage?"
"No, we're with you, of course! Ariella just had to find a carriage with less people in it so she could story her wand." Angel explained, pointing to the carriage behind them (which had half a log sticking out of the window).
"There were some nice boys in there- two of them sort of looked like monkeys!" Ariella piped up.
"Yes, but that blonde-haired boy was ceeeee-yoot! Too bad he had that pug-faced girl hanging all over him." Saka-Puko-Rana said, looking disappointed.
Harry, wondering vaguely how anyone besides Pansy could find him cute, glanced back at the carriage. He smirked- his enemies getting half-crushed by a tree-sized wand sounded perfectly fine to him. All three girls piled into the four-seated carriage; Ron, Hermione, and Neville smirking across at Harry, who had Ariella and Angel on either side of him, with Saka-Puko-Rana on his lap. He hadn't chosen this arrangement, of course.
"Aren't thestrals pretty?" Ariella commented, pointing to the rump of the skeletal stallion that was currently pulling their carriage. It was yet another thing that Harry wondered how it could fall into the 'cute' category.
"So, you can see them?" Hermione commented, since she and Ron could not.
"Oh, yes, we all can!" she said brightly, pointing to her two friends. "Wanna hear who we saw die!"
There was a rather awkward silence as the four sixth years exchanged looks of slight alarm. Ariella didn't seem to notice, and plunged right back into an explanation.
"Well, Harry already knows how I can…" Ariella said, referring to her years as a muggle-murdering three-year-old, "But Angel and Saka haven't!"
"SA-KA, not Sock-uh!" she corrected irritably, frowning. "Anyways, I saw my mother and father die!"
Harry was confused, of course.
"I thought you were my sister…?"
"Yes!" she said brightly. "I was defending them from Voldemort," Ron began whimpering, Neville yelped, Hermione rolled her eyes, "and so was Angel."
This was an extremely awkward point to argue. While he wasn't extremely sensitive about his parent's death, since it happened when he was so young when it happened, it was still not a favorite subject. Thankfully, he didn't have to say anything, since it was Ron who spoke up.
"But aren't you all the same age as Harry?"
"Yes! Exactly! We're probably triplets!" Angel squealed, clapping her hands. Harry rolled his eyes.
"But if you are," Ron continued, "Then how could you 'defend them' from You-Know-Who?"
"Who, Voldemort?" Ariella inquired.
"Blimey, as if I don't get this enough from Harry and Hermione!" Ron mumbled after wincing. Saka took over with the story by answering Ron's question.
"Well, of course we could, bro-in-law," she gave him a hearty punch on the shoulder, "We had wands."
"You can't get a wand until you're eleven!" Hermione argued.
"Well, we got them ten years early! Sheesh. Anyways. I blocked the first batch of Killing Curses-"
"You can't block the Killing Curse!" Hermione spats, now seeming to get as annoyed as Harry was feeling at the moment.
"Well, my magic is waaaay more powerful that your puny wands!"
Hermione looked utterly confused about the idea of not needing to use a wand, and was probably wracking her brain for something she might have read about it. Saka ignored her and let Angel take over their story of the Baby Protectors.
"Well, I fended off the next batch-" and with a glare at Hermione- "Because this puffball at the of my wand gives me super-special-awesome-amazing powers." She waved the pink wand in front of her nose. "But as I was blocking one of the Killing Curses from hitting my dearest loveable mumsie and popsicle, I got hit!"
Cue the gasps from Saka and Ariella.
"But thankfully, it just bounced off and left this heart-shaped scar." She pushed her bangs back to reveal it. "But while I was down, Voldemort murdered daddy, and then murdered mommy, and then tried to murder dear brother of mine, but ended up murdering himself! Isn't that funny?"
No one seemed to think so.
"But after that, we fled to where Ariella was and lived with her." Angel finished, giggling. Harry decided not to comment on how Angel and Saka-Puko-Rana could have gotten all the way to where ever his should-be-nonexistant 'daughter' was.
The story time ended, though, since they had arrived at the castle.