Chapter 4­

Recap: Don't be hasty child. Let's see very loyal and keeps promises, like a Hufflepuff, but that is most certainly not the house for you – or is it? Hmm… smart, yet lacking something for the Ravenclaw house, not like your sister. Cunning, like your other sister in the Slytherin house. Yet very brave and daring as a Gryffindor should be. Very tricky, but I think you would do best in…

……………

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Zareh and Raelin both stared at their vampiric sister as she calmly took the hat off her head with a small triumphant smile upon her face.

"Gryffindor? A Knight?" Zareh asked in disbelief, her hand was poised over the parchment with an old quill in it. "Mum's side of the family always got into Ravenclaw house, which is obviously who I get my talent from. Then dad's side of the family has nearly always gotten into Slytherin. You broke the Knight/Styles tradition!"

Oh boo hoo. Vala thought to herself with an eye roll. She tried to keep her emotions to herself at the mention of their father, though, who was still missing.

"Just let it drop, White." Raelin said, placing a wide-brimmed pointed grey hat on her head so it went over her eyes, even though it would make no difference to her. "It's not her fault what type of person she is. Don't bring mum and dad into the argument."

"Fine, I'll let it go… but what's with this, White, nickname?" Zareh asked, scribbling a few words onto the parchment before looking over to her youngest sister.

Raelin's response was a light snoring, signaling her sisters that she was asleep.

Vala took the hat off her sister's head and placed it on the bedpost. She turned around and began walking up the wall to the rafters once more.

"If you get caught and killed by a hunter, it's so not my fault." Zareh stated, waving her finger at Vala in warning.

The half vampire chuckled as she made herself comfortable in the upside down position she was in at the moment, wrapping her black feathered wings around her and falling asleep almost immediately.

Zareh sighed as she handed Fawkes (whose name she had read in the letter) the sorting hat and parchment.

"Thank you very much, keep safe." The sorceress whispered to the phoenix as it flew out of the window and into the black night.

……………

"Rise and shine ladies!" Zareh's voice near echoed throughout the room.

Vala opened her eyes slowly and peaked through a small gap in the feathers of her wings, but quickly closed them again as the sunlight hurt her eyes.

"Get down here, Val." Zareh called, throwing the dark sunglasses up to the ceiling.

The half vampire reached down and caught it with astonishing reflexes and placed them over her sensitive eyes. Vala let go of the rafter and twisted her body to land near silent on her feet.

"Show off," Raelin muttered, flicking her wrist in the general direction of her hairbrush. It flew off the dresser and began to brush through the werewolf's curly blond hair.

"Hurry and get in the shower, we've already had ours." Zareh ordered, jerking her thumb over to the bathroom.

Vala wrinkled her nose as she walked over to her trunk and took out a few articles of clothing.

"We're wearing our Knight robes." Zareh stated, pulling a shrunken box out of a secret pocket.

Oh goody, I love uniforms. Vala thought sarcastically, taking her clothes into the bathroom to wash away all her problems for a few moments.

"Are you sure being back in England will be good for Val?" Raelin asked, stroking Ranger's head as he lay in her lap. "Will it be good for us? Mum did…"

"I know." Zareh snapped, her eyes dangerously close to letting a wall of tears fall, but she kept them to herself. "It's not like that bloody Death Eater is still looking for us, we're safe from Him."

"For now." Raelin muttered under her breath.

Zareh rubbed her temples as she muttered a small incantation, waving her hand to the trunk. "Engorgio."

The bag almost immediately grew to its original size. The sorceress began to take out three different robes, setting them neatly onto her bed.

"Which one?" Raelin asked, getting ready to send Ranger to fetch her robes to slip over her Muggle clothes. Of which consisted of tight, faded blue jeans and a thin purple sweater with her curly blond hair now up in a low ponytail.

Zareh began to take a hairbrush to her own tangled mass of blond hair. "The middle one."

Ranger leapt off the bed and sniffed the middle one, which was a grey material that matched the pointed hat Raelin had been wearing the previous night, before picking it up in his mouth and bringing it to his master.

"Good boy," Raelin cooed, rubbing her warm nose against the wolf's own cold, wet one.

Zareh snorted as she examined herself in the mirror, taking in her small figure that was near hidden in the layers of her own white robes, which she had just put on over her own outfit of pale blue pants and a bright green, V-neck sweater.

"What do you think, Ranger, hat or no hat?" Zareh questioned the wolf, placing her hat upon her dead straight blond head of hair that flowed freely down her back and then taking it off.

Ranger tilted his head to one side, trying to decide.

"Put it on, Zar." Raelin said, looking in the direction of the closed window. "It's raining out again."

"How do you know?" the sorceress demanded, feeling slightly foolish afterwards.

Raelin turned her head lazily towards her oldest sister. "I can hear it on the roof, idiot."

"Just put your robes on and let's go." Zareh replied as Vala walked silently out of the bathroom with her dark wet hair making her black T-shirt damp as well. "I was up early this morning and I think I found a potion that will make your wings come and go as you please, only have to take it once a year too."

Vala forced a smile as she tightened the strap around her chest to hold her wings in place before throwing her tattered black robes over her thin frame.

"Ready?" Zareh questioned, placing her hat upon her blond head of hair and picking up her purple velvet purse heavy with a few items.

Raelin snapped Ranger's leash onto his makeshift collar and adjusted her hat, nodding. Vala placed the wide-brimmed black hat onto her head before motioning for the door.

……………

After a few minutes of trying to remember how to actually get into Diagon Alley, the sisters finally managed to enter.

"Three up, two down; must remember that" Zareh muttered to herself as the stepped onto the busy street. "We need to go to Gringotts first, and get some money out of our vault."

"We have a vault in a city – country rather – we haven't been in ten years?" Raelin asked, tapping her seeing stick along the road.

"It was mum and dad's." Zareh replied quietly, walking faster towards a large white building.

"Really… that's interesting." Raelin murmured, carefully walking up the stairs to the bank.

Vala followed behind them, glancing over to the side of the bank where there was a dark alleyway with a strong sense of dark magic coming from it.

"Vala, come on." Zareh barked, slipping through the door with Raelin and Ranger following pursuit.

The half vampire quickly bounded up the stairs, not wanting to get left behind, and walked calmly through the door into the building with goblins, witches and wizards walking briskly through it.

"Move it Val!" Raelin called, seeing her sister's aura from her spot near the back. Vala rolled her eyes and walked over to them.

"The goblin (whose name I forget) is showing us where the vault is, then we can take out whatever we want in it… as much as Zareh lets us anyway." Raelin whispered up to her taller sister, who nodded in response.

"He was very surprised to see us – the key rather." The werewolf continued, getting a distant look on her slightly pale face. "Thought that all the Knights 'round here died ten years ago. Said that everyone thought that. Odd, isn't it?"

"Hmm," Vala replied, not really paying attention to her younger sister as they finally caught up with Zareh and the goblin.

"There we are Miss Knight." The goblin stated proudly, opening up the large door that led into the even larger vault.

"Thank you," Zareh said in a slightly monotone voice, waving the goblin away. "You may go now, it's our vault and we need no more assistance from you."

Mumbling inaudible things, the goblin handed the key to the eldest and walked off in a huff.

"What's wrong with you today, Zar?" Raelin questioned, looking slightly puzzled.

"Nothing." Was the sorceress's quick response as she walked into the room filled to the brim with mounds and mounds of gold, silver and bronze coins.

Vala opened her eyes wide at the sight, where as Raelin ran her fingers through a pile of coins to her right, trying to imagine what they looked like.

"It's times like this when I really hate being blind." She stated suddenly, getting a cross look upon her face.

Zareh nodded absentmindedly as she began filling three small velvet bags with an equal amount of coins in each, while Vala made her way to the middle of the room, where there was a large wooden trunk.

The half vampire slowly opened up the trunk, wondering what was inside it.

"What's that?" Zareh questioned, looking over Vala's shoulder at the trunk's contents.

Inside it were a number of things; a green and white scarf, a black and purple scarf, a cloak made of a very strange material, the list was endless.

"These were mum and dad's school scarves." Zareh said breathlessly, pulling the two items out. While Zareh was explaining the fact to Raelin, Vala continued to look through it.

Vala raised an eyebrow at two old books at the bottom of the trunk. Reaching in, she pulled them both out and examined their covers; one had the title Journal, while the other had Photographs.

"Take whatever you want," Zareh stated, thinking that there was nothing else of value in there. She tossed Vala a small bag of coins and a larger empty bag along with it as she made her way towards the door. "We ought to get our shopping done now, we're leaving tomorrow for Hogwarts."

"Tomorrow?" Raelin shrieked. "We'd better have time to stop at a joke shop of some sort before then, or I'll take my anger out on you."

The two continued to argue as they walked out of the room. Vala, not wanting to be left behind again, quickly shoved the books into her bag, as well as the cloak before dashing out of the room – shutting it behind her – and running after her sisters who had abandoned her.

"Come on Val, we've got to get our wands." Zareh called as Vala calmly stepped out of the front door of the bank.

Sighing in annoyance, Vala walked down the steps and towards a shop her sisters had just entered with a sign that read: Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands Since 382B.C.

"What happened to you first wands, break them? Lost them?" a man – presumably Ollivander – questioned the Knight girls once they were all present.

"Mr. Ollivander, my sisters and I have never in our lives owned a wand." Zareh explained importantly, standing up to her pitiful full height.

"I see," Mr. Ollivander muttered, looking over the three sisters with examining eyes. He motioned for Zareh to step forward, which she did, as he took out a tape measure.

"Which arm do you use?"

Zareh held out her right arm, which he then measured, as well as a few other random things before walking down an isle, frowning slightly while muttering to himself.

"You've got a defective arm." Raelin whispered into her oldest sister's ear, which resulted in her getting hit upside the head by said sister.

Ollivander came back looking quite pleased with himself as he set the long box carefully on the desk.

"Nine and a half inches, rosewood, the hair from the tail of a beautiful female unicorn, inflexible." He stated, handing the wand to Zareh with a steady hand. "Very good for charms."

As the sorceress gripped the wand in her right hand, colours began to swirl from the tip and all around her. She smiled and placed eight Galleons on the table before stepping aside to her other sisters take a chance. The wand was quite plain, being pure white save for a golden unicorn etched into the wood near the bottom

Raelin went next, standing still while Ollivander took her measurements too, and ended up with a wand ten inches, made of maple, with a werewolf claw centre. He had said it was very good for transfigurations. The wand being equally plain as Zareh's, only this time it was grey, with a bronze engraving of a wolf near the bottom.

Vala, however, was another story. Ollivander had tried to give her a number of wands, all of which didn't agree with her.

"Scratch that, you're the one whose got the defective arm, you are a lefty after all." Raelin stated from her spot on the floor. Zareh agreed silently with a nod, but still kept her nose buried in a book on potions she always kept handy.

"I wonder…" Vala heard Mr. Ollivander mutter from the back of the shop. He slowly came to the front with a very old looking black box in his hands. "This one is eleven inches in length, redwood, vampiric feather core, very swishy. The only one in existence far as I am concerned, the feathers are as hard to come by as winged vampires these days."

The old man placed the box on the counter and opened it with great care. Vala peered curiously at it with her dark eyes as she gingerly took the wand out of its case and held it up in front of her. Almost immediately, many different coloured sparks began to fly off the end of the wand.

Vala smiled slightly as she inspected her wand. It was also plain, being only of pure black, save for a silver bat drawn near the end of it and a small inscription – a poem of some sort – going all the way down the handle.

Ollivander peered at Vala's slightly long fangs, but made no comment as she placed fifteen Galleons on the table.

"It is only fair I pay you more for a wand with as rare a core as this." She explained quietly in her thick, overlapping British/Romanian accent.

Ollivander nodded his thanks to her.

As the three Knights began to leave the shop, Vala turned her head back to the wizard. "I may be able to help you in your search for vampiric feathers." She whispered, before following her sisters out into the street.

"Alright, we need robes, books, cauldrons, a few ingredients from the apothecary. The list is rather long." Zareh stated. Her eyes scanned the parchment held out in front of her.

"Give me the items you need for my potion." Vala said quietly, holding out a pale hand after placing her wand into her inside pocket. "You get the other things, and I meet you in the robe shop in an hour."

Raelin and Zareh just stared at their vampiric sister.

"What in the world has gotten you talking so much?" Raelin demanded, narrowing her sightless eyes at her older sister.

Vala shrugged and shoved her hands back into her pockets.

Zareh ripped the parchment in half and gave the bottom to Vala.

"I'll pay for you books if you get all of these things." She said in a business tone of voice, her face expressionless. "We'll meet atMadam Malkinsin an hour."

Vala nodded to the sorceress and looked at the first item on the list, while out of the corner of her eye, watching Zareh drag Raelin down the street to Flourish and Blotts Bookstore.

The first item on the list was a very deadly snake skin, with a nigh unpronounceable name, along with it was a poisonous candle.

They would never have it out in the open. Vala said to herself, sniffing the air for the familiar scent of poisonous snakeskin.

After a few seconds, the half vampire's sensitive nose was hit with the scent of the snakeskin. Smiling slightly, Vala began to walk swiftly towards the smell, going back to the bank, the dark alley beside it actually, with the words: Knockturn Alley written above it. She placeda piece of cloth over the bottom half of her face, knowing that it wasn't a good thing to be going into a place like that.

Trying not to think of the powerful smell of dark magic coming from within it, the half vampire entered it.

… … …

Raelin struggled out of Zareh's grip, scowling at the sorceress. "That's not fair, why does Val get to go off?"

Ranger nodded, when he stopped suddenly, sniffing the air deeply.

The young werewolf turned around and was about to call her wolf, when she bumped into someone, sending her walking stick rolling to the opposite side of the road and the both of them sprawling into the dirt.

Cursing under her breath, Raelin struggled to sit up, but whomever she bumped into was on top of her.

"Get off!" she shrieked, getting slightly scared for some odd reason.

Ranger growled and used his teeth to yank the wizard off his master.

"Watch where you're going, do you have any idea who I am?" the wizard demanded, brushing his robes off as best he could, making a face when he placed his hand in wolf saliva from Ranger.

Raelin stood up quickly. "No I don't, actually." She replied with a bored expression upon her face.

"Lucius Malfoy."

"Uh-huh, that's nice… never heard of you if that's what you were expecting me to say."

"Never heard of the Malfoy's, have you?" Lucius asked, looking down at the blond werewolf. "Then you obviously must be a mudblood."

Raelin turned red as she tried to keep her anger to herself. "I am actually a pure blood, you son of a…"

"Raelin!" Zareh yelled, causing both to turn in her direction. "Let's move!"

"Stay out of a Knight's way, Malfoy." Raelin sneered, curling her lip at the wizard before walking after her sister with a little whoosh of her tattered grey robe.

Ranger had placed her walking stick back into her hand and was struggling to keep up with the quick pace of the enraged werewolf.

"Mudblood, eh?" Raelin muttered to herself, smirking inwards. "Just wait and see about that, Malfoy."

REVIEW PLEASE! I just loves reviews!