How has it been almost four months since I uploaded? Lord. I've just recently had wisdom tooth surgery, and also went back to working at the office in these last few months. Anyhoozle, I've written up into where Percy's at school (in a few chapters from now), so I'm hoping to have those chapters posted soon. I hope you enjoy these next few years as we get more of the family to Hogwarts. :D

Trixie Black Lestrange

Even though she had an early morning the first day of classes, Nymphadora was very excited to get started. She took Will's advice, though, and followed a couple of older students up to the Great Hall the next morning. To be honest, Dora didn't think it was all that difficult to wander up out of the dungeons into the Entrance Hall in order to find where the food was, but she supposed it was more difficult for those who lived in the towers to find the Great Hall.

She found a seat by herself along the table and helped herself to some toast as she looked around thoughtfully, seeing some of the older students strolling around, totally used to the routine. Dora spotted Ronan walking into the hall and noticed that he seemed a little frazzled—she felt bad, wondering if she should have told him the same thing that Will had told her—follow an older student to breakfast.

Ronan sat down next to her and muttered, "Got lost in the dungeons. I think Nott purposely lied to me."

"Arse," said Dora, making her cousin crack a grin for a second.

"If we have classes with other houses," Ronan asked, "are you going to sit with your twin?"

Dora frowned. "I don't know," she answered. "I think it would depend on the class. Some classes have tables, and some sit on the floor."

"On the floor?" Ronan said in disbelief. "Why?"

"Oh, that's Divination," said a fourth year across the table from them. "A Ravenclaw told me that it's not advisable to take that elective."

"I don't intend to," Dora answered. "Mum says it's worthless, anyway."

Their housemate smirked and agreed. "So," he said to Ronan, "you're the Lestrange heir? The one who told Barty Crouch that he's a terrible father?"

"Is there another Lestrange heir?" Ronan replied, taking a drink of his juice.

"Do you take after your mother or your father?" the older boy asked thoughtfully, amused at the response to his first question.

"Both," Ronan answered, then glanced at Dora. "Right?"

"Yes," Dora grinned. "More so your dad when I first knew you, and then after, you acted like Aunt Bella."

"Aunt?" said the boy in surprise. "You're cousins?"

The two looked at him in annoyance and Dora said, "Our mothers are sisters, but I lived with the Lestranges for four years, so we know each other more."

"Yeah, remember?" said the girl next to him. "Bellatrix kidnapped the little girl and her mother didn't even care."

"That's not true," Dora said sharply.

"It was a bad situation," Ronan said to all three of them, getting to his feet and almost running into Professor Snape. "Oh—Professor."

"In a hurry, Lestrange?" the man asked softly.

Ronan looked straight at Professor Snape and replied, "No, Professor."

The man looked at Ronan for a moment longer, then handed over one of the papers he had in his hands. "Your class schedule, Lestrange. And you, Weasley."

Dora said nothing, but she hated the way everyone said her name. Taking the paper, she got up and left the table with Ronan, both walking out into the Entrance Hall. "Starting off with Charms," she read quickly. "All right, shouldn't be too difficult."

"Grandfather says it's always difficult, no matter what," Ronan said. "I'm not so sure about that, Dora."

"Well, Mum taught us some spells that should help us," Dora shrugged. "I can teach them to you if you want."

"We need to figure out somewhere that we can be and talk and practise things without anyone knowing or seeing us," he murmured. "Be thinking about that, okay?"

Dora nodded, and the two began the task of finding the Charms classroom. She and Ronan barely made it on time, scrambling into the classroom as Professor Flitwick began his introduction to the class. "Ah, I was hoping you'd find us," he said to the two. "I'm Professor Flitwick."

The two quickly murmured an assent and took their places, listening intently and trying not to draw attention to themselves. They both grinned at each other when they had no trouble levitating the feathers that were placed in front of them near the end of the class period. They were equally thrilled that they received no homework because they had been able to perform the spells in class. Almost everyone else was told to keep practising, though there were a few students that Dora knew that had also been taught by their parents before coming to Hogwarts, and it showed.

It wasn't until the following day that the Slytherins and Gryffindors had a class together, and Dora walked to class alone, completely unsure of whether Charlie would want to sit near her if she was with Ronan, and vice versa. Since it was History of Magic, she figured it would be easier to her to talk to or even pass notes to her twin or her cousin.

Charlie arrived at the classroom the same time as Dora and raised an eyebrow at her. "How's Slytherin treating you?" he asked.

"Ignoring me, mostly," Dora answered. "Trying to curse me the rest of the time. It's all right. How do you like being a Gryff?"

"I'm glad Will's there," he said. "A lot of them are rude, and they don't have any concept of privacy."

"Oh." Dora frowned. "You can teach them to stay away."

"How?" Charlie laughed, shaking his head. "Yelling at them? Cursing them? There's a difference between respecting someone and avoiding them."

"True," agreed Dora. "Going to sit with me?"

"Where's your cousin?" Charlie answered. "Are you going to sit with him?"

"He's your cousin too," Dora huffed. "He's a cousin to all of us. Don't be an arse, Charlie. Come sit with me."

"If you insist," Charlie answered in the same tone, and she looked at him for a second before they both laughed.

Dora sat in one of the middle seats, and Charlie sat beside her, some of the students around them whispering and eyeing them. Ronan sat near the front of the class on the right, and Charlie grinned to himself and entertained himself and his twin by writing comments on their professor's lecture and drawing funny little pictures of wizards dueling in the margins of his textbook.

By the end of the first month, Charlie felt extremely out of place within Gryffindor House, even though Will did his best to include him with his friends and show him around. Will didn't have an openly dark humour and was far more outgoing, more able to share with others, but Charlie did not feel so free.

Most weekends found Charlie out by the Black Lake, away from everyone else as he varied between doing homework and chucking stones into the lake. Occasionally, he would see the Giant Squid surface and playfully splash or even wash at students on the shore. It was getting too cold for anyone to get into the lake, but some still bundled up and came down to the lake fairly often.

One afternoon, Charlie arrived at the lake after an awful Potions class only to find a couple of kids throwing rocks at the Giant Squid, who seemed to be teasing them. "Hey, stop that," he said before thinking, and when they turned to him, he realised that they were both older Slytherins, and that at least one of them was above even Will's year.

"Or what?" the older of the two scoffed. "Going to tell on us? You're a Weasley, aren't you? You're always skulking about out here. Why don't you go play with your brother and his Mudblood friend?"

"I'm not into that," Charlie answered coolly, though he realised that he had a problem on his hands.

"He's Dora's twin," said the younger Slytherin, and Charlie finally recognised him to be Alvin Nott.

"Just leave the squid alone," Charlie said.

"Get out of here," the first one scoffed. "You're no prefect."

Charlie reached for his wand, and the boy got out of the way just in time, angrily yelling, "No, you don't, Weasley!" Alvin stepped back out of the line of fire immediately just fast enough to witness his companion being knocked to the grass by a consecutive spell, his own curse having missed Charlie by inches.

"Trouble 'ere, boys?"

Charlie looked around and started in surprise at the man before him, though he immediately realised it was Hagrid, the groundskeeper, who had escorted the first years across the lake at the beginning of the year. "No trouble," Charlie answered as the third year scrambled to his feet at the sight of the half-giant. "Just skipping stones."

Hagrid was looking between the three, then said, "Good. Run along, the pair o' yeh." The two Slytherins walked away, not looking back as they headed straight back to the castle, and Hagrid looked at Charlie. "Yeh're a Weasley."

"I hear that all the time," Charlie said, glancing at the lake water, which had gone smooth. "Was the squid playing, or was it angry?"

"Oh, it's a good-natured creature," Hagrid grinned out at the waves. "The students are always trying to hit it with rocks, but they never do. It's too smart and too fast."

"Have you ever been really close to it?" Charlie asked curiously. "I don't think it likes to have too many people near it, but it's come close to shore a few times."

"I know," Hagrid said, then realised what he sounded like. "I've watched yeh from my cabin sometimes; it looks like yeh get along pretty well with the Giant Squid. I've never been able to touch 'er, but she does sometimes race students swimmin' with it, and it rescues any student that starts drownin', or even falls out of the first year boats."

"Really?" Charlie said with a grin. "That's cool!"

"D'yeh like magical creatures?" Hagrid said hopefully. "I met your brother last year, but he mostly talked about Quidditch. Do you like Quidditch too?" He was clearly not aware of the expression on his own face.

"I do like Quidditch," Charlie said truthfully, "and I would love to play for Gryffindor, but I don't know if I'm good enough. That's next year, I hope." The groundskeeper's face seemed to fall slightly, and Charlie continued quickly, "I've always liked dragons, though. And griffins, and really interesting creatures like that."

"Ooh, dragons!" Hagrid said in delight. "Tell yeh what. Why don't yeh come over to my cabin, and I'll make yeh a nice cup of tea, and we can chat about dragons. I've been reading up on 'em—I hope to have one some day—you know, as a pet."

"Isn't that illegal?" Charlie asked with a frown.

"To breed them," Hagrid said mysteriously, and turned, leading the way to his cabin. "If you could have one as a pet, wouldn't yeh?"

"It takes more than one wizard to keep a dragon in check," Charlie said, almost running to follow the man. "But I think being a dragon keeper would be fun."

"Dangerous, too," Hagrid agreed. "But worth it, for the sweet little things."

Charlie did not comment on this as Hagrid neared his hut and a chorus of barking sounded from the inside. "Oh, that's Fang," Hagrid said warningly as he went to open the door. "He only sounds ferocious, but he's a puppy and wouldn't hurt a thing."

The dog nearly knocked Charlie over when he entered the hut, and Charlie grabbed a hold of the table to steady himself, saying, "Whoa, Fang!"

"He's just excited t' see yeh," Hagrid said, sparing a glance toward the boy and the dog before he turned to find a clean mug in which to make tea.

"Hello," Charlie said to the dog. "I'm Charlie. You're big for only being a puppy."

"He's special," Hagrid said, rustling around in the kitchen. "He was the runt o' the litter."

Charlie gave a small laugh. "Me too," he said.

"Well, at least your mother didn't drown yeh," Hagrid said. "That's what his owners were gonna do."

"Poor thing," Charlie said, scratching behind the dog's ears and smiling slightly at the creature. "That's no way to live. We're glad you're here, Fang." The boy sat down at the table and the dog promptly sat at Charlie's feet, his head in the boy's lap.

"Here you are," Hagrid said, setting a large mug in front of the boy. "So you're Charlie. I've heard there's quite a lot of yeh. Do any of the rest of your family like magical creatures?"

"Not like I do," Charlie answered, not looking up from the dog except to politely try the tea—and then quickly put sugar in it, much to Hagrid's amusement. "I've liked dragons for a long time, even before I was four years old."

"Really?" Hagrid said, impressed.

Charlie nodded and began to talk about the books and posters his mother had gotten for him. He accidentally mentioned his twin breathing fire and was wondering how to not talk about it when he heard Hagrid laughing. "It's not funny," Charlie said sharply, and Hagrid grinned, wiping away tears of laughter.

"I didn't even know yeh had a twin," he said. "Magic is powerful: there's almost nothin' it can't do."

"I told her to do it," Charlie said, staring into his mug. "And she ended up in St Mungo's."

"Kids have ended up in St Mungo's for worse things," Hagrid reassured him. "Even Madam Pomphrey has seen worse things than someone who might've taken Fire-Breathing Potion. Yeh're not responsible for the rest of your family, just yerself."

Charlie didn't say much more about his family, but carefully steered the conversation back to real dragons—his mother would have been proud of his accomplishment—and tried not to mention his twin again. This was difficult to do, however, because Dora was tied to several of his memories of dragons and had read and talked about dragons with him a lot.

"D'yeh not like your sister?" Hagrid asked softly, after a few moments, and Charlie looked up angrily.

"Of course I like her," he said hotly. "It's only difficult because she wasn't always with us—Bellatrix took her from us for four years, and Mum didn't even try to get her back."

"Ah." Hagrid didn't say anything at first, then said, "Well, family is a tricky thing, especially when yeh get inter the old pureblood families like your mum's. Bellatrix was never a nice witch."

"I didn't think so," Charlie huffed, knowing he should be acting much more polite but being unable to help himself. "We should have brought Dora home instead of leaving her with Ronan and his stupid Death Eater family."

Hagrid peered at the boy carefully, then said, "I'd imagine it would be difficult even for Dumbledore's group to have retrieved the girl back then. I'm not sayin' it was nice to leave her at Lestrange Manor—no one ever went there if they could help it back before the Lestranges went to Azkaban."

"They didn't even try," Charlie said. "They acted like they didn't care. And I'll never understand them." He crossed his arms, but was interrupted by Fang whining and looking up at him, nudging his leg to reclaim his attention.

"I don't claim to understand any old pureblood families," Hagrid sighed. "But if your mum thought your twin was safe, don't you believe that she was?"

"They only wanted her for her powers," Charlie replied, shaking his head. "Bellatrix said so, right in front of me and Mum and Will when she took Dora. Alice was there too, before...well, you know."

"Alice Longbottom?" Hagrid said in surprise.

Charlie sighed. "Yes. I don't really remember her. I do remember the day they went to St Mungo's, though. It was one of the few times I've ever seen Mum really sad, but she still didn't do anything. Dora didn't come home until Ronan's grandfather sent her home."

"But they didn't hurt her, did they?" Hagrid asked. "She's all right now, isn't she?"

"She's too attached to them," Charlie answered. "And Ronan. You'll probably see—she's a Slytherin, just like him."

"She was taken for her powers...and you don't have those?" the man said as carefully as he could.

"No," Charlie said. "I don't want to be special. It just gets you in trouble."

"You wanted her home so you could protect her," Hagrid said wisely, and Charlie nodded. "You're a good brother, and believe me: I've seen some bad ones. Stick by her."

"I am," Charlie answered. "I mean, it's hard being here at school since we're not in the same house, but we see each other almost every meal."

"Do you think she'd come over for tea?" Hagrid asked curiously.

"I'm not sure," Charlie said. "Probably not. She's probably too busy trying to stop her housemates from making fun of her for being a Weasley."

"No one said being a kid was easy," Hagrid agreed. "But both your parents were good kids, and I'm sure she is too. And yeh don't seem like a runt to me, Charlie Weasley."

Charlie cracked a small smile. "Thanks," he said. "I don't think anyone understands me."

Hagrid nodded. "I was like that as a kid, so I try to help kids now when I see 'em. You're welcome to come here any time, alone or with your brother or friends. I like the company, and so does Fang."

"Thanks," Charlie said gratefully. "The tea was good." He got to his feet, having to stop and console Fang, who whined in protest. "I'll come back and visit," he said to the dog. "I promise. I've got to go get at least some homework done."

"You can do homework here too if you like," Hagrid suggested, following Charlie to the door and standing in the doorway as the boy began to walk toward the castle.

"Thanks!" Charlie called again, then turned and walked away quickly. It was the most awkward tea he'd ever had, and he felt sure that he'd merely sat down, played with the dog, and complained about Hogwarts and his entire family. He didn't think he had made a good impression at all, and told himself that this was exactly why he didn't have the friends that his older brother did. He would have to do better next time—and he felt terrible, because the last thought he had about the situation was that it was sad that the only person who had even tried to befriend him was a half-giant.