Summary: After his fifth year, Harry's summer is downright depressing, but when Remus lets him sort through Sirius's things he makes a discovery that could change his whole life.
Goldfish682: Don't cry, you might get your wish in this fic.
Laura Granger: Sorry it took so long. Glad you enjoy this story.
Wytil: How Liz is going to enter the story truly and how she'll get to Hogwarts? Read and find out.
Orlin: You love how she named her Phoenix Prongs? Just wait until you see the names of her owls. This is what's next.
Charmedlily: Not as soon as you hoped, but the story is not dead. School's keeping me awfully busy, but I'll survive.
PruePotter: Liz will be a very important factor in this story, more than Harry could ever have dreamed off.
Degrassifan2010: Maybe not soon, but I'll make sure to keep updating.
Lily390: Glad you liked the chapter. Obviously not a quick update, but an update non the less.
Dark Secrets
Chapter 8: A Little Good News
On the other side of the ocean, a girl stared sadly out of her window. Once again she had been confined to her room for pulling a prank on the most hateful girl in the institute. Racheal was a blond bimbo who thought the world of herself (and who, in her opinion, completely deserved to be pranked!). True she was pretty (yes, it's true) and she didn't lack magical talent, but the girl just couldn't stand her and her friends.
Those girls totally agreed with the institute's vision that they were better than other witches and wizards. Jessica, Diane and Elizabeth. She made a face at her reflection by even thinking the name. Stupid girls luckily shortened it to Beth or she would have freaked. All three were like Racheal: a pretty good set of brains and some magical talent, but too stupid to use it properly… Instead they were chasing any 'totally cute' human of the male species that happened to set foot inside the institute.
The girl was looked down on for having a boyfriend outside of the institute, but she found it a welcome break, happy to be considered normal every once in a while.
She looked up when a phoenix appeared in the room, letting out a soft purring sound as it gentle began to drift downwards. A smile appeared on her face and she held out her arm, welcoming the weight of the phoenix setting down on it.
How long had he done that now? Had it really been 3 years since it hatched?
She remembered the project all to well. They had been told to buy 4 owl eggs and hatch them with magic. Some hadn't managed to hatch any, some only one and others hatched all, but the owls died. In the end, not many of the owls had reached adulthood.
It was cruel and inhumane (but what wasn't here?) and she was glad all three chicks that hatched from her eggs were now full-grown owls, two snowy owls and one barred owl. The barred owl was male and the snowy owls were both male and female, Padfoot, Moony and Circe. They were out now, delivering letters to her friends, her gang.
The fourth egg hadn't hatched, no matter what she tried, but when it finally had, she had been surprised to find not an owl, but a phoenix chick. Prongs had been more than welcome and she had lied to the institute, saying it was a bad egg and it had never hatched. Prongs was her secret and she shared it to hardly anyone. Her friends knew, Sirius had known… and now, her brother knew.
She snapped out of her daze and accepted the scroll of parchment Prongs was pushing at her. She was just about to start reading when someone knocked on her door.
"Oh Frizzle. They want us all downstairs." Racheal's teasing voice rang through the door.
The girl stuck out her tongue to the door, but stood up anyway. She put the scroll down on her desk and walked over to the door, letting her phoenix transfer to its bird form behind the door before leaving her room.
Racheal stood opposite of the door, leaning against the wall.
"What do you want?" The girl hissed between her teeth, turning into the direction of the stairs.
"I am to escort you and make sure you don't try anything." Racheal told her with a smirk.
"They'd be smarter not you let you escort me, but hey, it's their problem." The girl shrugged, ignoring Racheal as she walked down the stairs to the main living room.
Everyone else was already there, waiting for her and Racheal to arrive. The moment she walked into the living room she immediately headed to the far corner, far away from the rest. Once Racheal had seated herself in between her adherents, for she thought they couldn't really be called friends, and started whispering to them, the principle, or supreme bigwig as she called him, tried to get their attention. He soon got it, though Racheal and her subjects were still whispering and sneaking glances at her.
"It is a pleasure to inform you all you'll be visiting a normal wizarding school." He started and she immediately lost interest, drifting away as the man's toneless voice continued, until being rudely interrupted.
"A PLEASURE?" Racheal shrieked. "How could it be a pleasure for us to mix with those lower forms of life?"
"If you would let me finish." The principal sighed. "I was going to say, you'll be able to show what a true witch or wizard should be like. You will follow their classes and show them just how far behind they really are. Of course you will have private accommodation."
"Sounds better already." Diane whispered none too softly for everyone to hear.
The girl turned to look at the shining sun on the lawn in front of the institute building. It was far straighter and shorter chopped than any other lawn you'd encounter and far greener too. She started wishing she was out there with her letter, for she knew this talk all too well and didn't like it at all.
"Where are we going?" One of the boys asked. "Trus? Meldor? Poldkar?"
"Oh no, none of that." Mr. Supreme Bigwig smirked. "We love this whole continent, but we're going somewhere more extreme. No, I've got my eyes fixed on a far more interesting school. No, we'll be going to Hogwarts. That no good of a headmaster Dumbledore is too blind to admit our superiority, so we'll just have to show him what we really are. More and more stories of kids with delusions of grandeur are appearing and it's time to put a stop to this."
The girl's ears had pricked the moment she heard the all familiar name of Hogwarts, but to her it had far different meanings than to those zombies sitting on the ground. Keeping her attention this time, she listened quietly.
"How are we to be allowed to come?" Racheal asked slyly. "I mean, if Frizzball won't behave here, there's no telling what she'd do there."
"True, but I'd rather don't leave her here unguarded. There might not be an institute to return to. No, she'll just have to come along." The principal grimaced, ignoring the fact that the very person he was speaking about was right there in the room, her ears attuned to every word.
"With all do respect, Master Bigwig." The girl said dully, knowing very well she was insulting the principal. "I won't let you leave me behind anyway. You know as well as I do, I'd be waiting for you all at the gates of Hogwarts. There's no way I'd let this opportunity pass."
"You better watch your step and tongue." The principal hissed. "You were brought here from out of the gutter, you can be returned just as easily. Now, the new term starts there September 1st - they don't understand holidays are the worst invention ever - and we'll be arriving there September 15th."
"You have until September 14th to come up with a grand entrance. The person who does will be greatly rewarded. Now off you go, I'm sure you've all got more important things to do with your time, like perfecting your spellwork, or potions, or whatever other things you could impress Hogwarts with." He continued more loudly.
Everyone slowly got up, cruelly chatting about what fun they could have with the Hogwarts students. The girl was lost in thought, though she still heard the conversations around her, maybe even better than if she actually paid attention to them. Silently she made a vow to punish anyone doing a Hogwarts student wrong.
A smug grin suddenly spread over her face. One thing the institute's zombies didn't know was that she already knew a large group of Hogwarts students, her very own group of friends, all special and extremely devoted. She had met them through her best friend and every summer they came over to a small village not far from the institute for a week to visit her. They knew who she was and had sworn her loyalty, as she had sworn them the same. The oath had yet to be broken. No word about her ever left their lips, unless they were in trouble and they were a lot.
It hadn't taken her long to corrupt them and the moment they went to Hogwarts, the school had been terrorized by a new gang of pranksters; The Magic Mayhem, they were called and she was their proud ring-leader, her best friend being her second in command. If they were caught and asked who was to blame the answer never changed; 'Flame Feather, Professor.' (all in a very chirpy and sweet tone).
A smile grew wider when she closed her bedroom door behind her. Finally Hogwarts would meet the feared Flame Feather… and the only thing that stopped her from planning complete and utter havoc was her respect for Dumbledore.
Her eyes fell on the scroll of parchment and her eyes lightened when a new thought entered her mind: 'How would he react to this?'
A/N: Took me a while (again), but school's murder and other things keep distracting me. Fear not, this story will not die for a long, long time; it just has a little trouble of being updated. :P Hope you don't mind too much and think it was worth the wait. Please review, I'm dieing to know what you think.