II

When Audrey had been six-year-old, she had got in a stupid feud with Betty Fairchild, a pureblood girl whose mother was an old friend of Audrey's dad. She couldn't remember the reason by the life of hers – maybe it was a doll, maybe it was because Audrey had made fun of Betty's freckles. Either way, Betty had got really, angry and waited until Audrey had been busy writing – even then, she loved writing – to cut her beloved blonde braid.

Audrey cried for hours and hours; now, it looked a bit silly, but for six-year-old Audrey, her hair meant the world because it was the same hair that her mum – the mum she never knew and probably never would – had, and the hair that made her dad fall in love, like in those fairytales she liked a bit too much.

This day was the first time that Audrey's magic had worked. In the next morning, her hair grown twice as long and twice as thick, a long mane of molten silver in big curls in her back. In the end, her dad said Betty cutting her hair had been a good thing, because proved she was a witch.

Not a half-veela nor half-human, but a witch with magic of her own.

They're always a rainbow in the corner, cupcake, her dad had said, clasping his hands together. Your mum broke my poor, little heart, but I have you now. You just need to find your own rainbow!

She liked to think of herself as a natural optimist.

Little Audrey Blanchard always had taken everything that life had thrown at her and did the best she could. She had this uncanny dexterity to adapt, changing herself in face of need; maybe another of the mom's things that haunted her very much.

After all, even if she never wanted to go to Hogwarts, she had gone. Angry and hurt and everything else, she was enduring, just like she always did with everything else. After all, at eleven-year-old she had endured a life hiding who she was and what kind of blood was in her veins, dealing with some strange powers that are bound to get worse as old she got.

But when her first days at Hogwarts started as pure and utterly hell, she thought to herself – to the hell with rainbows.

And everything started with a cat, a toad, and a hat.

In the middle of Hogwarts Express, Cat screamed like the world was on fire, jumped from Audrey's arms – and she screamed too, more from the shock than anything else – and went directly at poor Trevor, Audrey forced herself to think that something good would come from the fact that her cat pursued the poor toad all the way in the compartment and then out, to the rest of train, and Neville was a wreck, holding tears and Hermione was completely lost.

"Cat! Cat!", Audrey screamed, but the feline couldn't care less, big yellow eyes fixed on his prey, and Audrey's cheeks were burning in embarrassment. Hermione tried to hold off Cat just to get her arms scratched, Neville squealed and then both pets are out of the compartment, in the middle of the train.

Audrey was near to tears at this point because now… Now neither Hermione nor Neville would want to her friends.

"It's okay, Neville, Trevor is smart", Hermione tried. "We can separate and go searching, right? Then we can find both Trevor and…"

"Cat. The cat's name is Cat".

Hermione looked at Audrey like she was crazy.

"Aren't you muggleborn?", Audrey asked. "Like Breakfast at Tiffany's. You know, Audrey Hepburn? She is my namesake. Cat's name is supposed to be a joke"

She wasn't lying. In her last birthday, her dad had got her a kitten because Audrey had been nothing but a loss around any kind of cute animal. She had almost cried, because her dad never had let her have any familiar before – "I'm allergic, dear! Why don't we buy you a new plushie, uh?" – and she had been asking for one for some time. Ecstatic over her new best friend, Audrey had found herself in a dire situation: she had no idea about how name her kitten.

Her dad had laughed and let her watch the movie, and they decided to call the kitten Cat, as an inside joke, after he told her from where her name come. "I used to think Audrey Hepburn was the most beautiful woman in the world, before I met your mother, of course. I thought her name would suit you"

But now Cat's name left a bad taste in the back of her throat. Maybe she should change it.

"I'm pretty sure we shouldn't be allowed to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's", Hermione dismissed. "Doesn't matter. We need to find Trevor and Cat, before any of them get hurt. C'mon".

And then she was out of the compartment, bushy hair and Hogwarts's skirt dancing behind her. Audrey looked at Neville for a moment, gulped, and felt bad. "I'm sorry, Neville. I'm really sorry".

Audrey spent half of her way to Hogwarts looking for the two lost familiars, her chest aching in both embarrassment and worry. What if Cat, who was usually very chill animal, had hurt poor Trevor? Audrey even felt bad for thinking of the toad as weird. She probably would be giving him a hug as soon as they found the pets.

Around midday, she spent all the money she had in her pockets buying all the sweets Neville could want because she really had no idea about how to ask sorry again (Hermione said she should've had kept Cat in her cage, and Audrey felt even worse), and they left to keep searching. Then Hermione started saying all the kinds she knew about felines, like they can get sick by drinking milk in her quickly and matter-of-fact voice, like a recorder.

Then she went on asking if Audrey knew anything about the four Houses – for which her answer was a solely "my dad was in Hufflepuff, but all the rest of the family was in either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, what is cool, I think" – and then she went in very long speech about why she thought that Gryffindor would be beneficial for her development as a young girl.

Audrey wasn't stupid, but that girl was something else entirely. But better bossy Hermione, who knew her way around any subject, than Neville in bring of tears. Audrey never knew what to do with crying people.

Together, they went from cabin to cabin trying to find either Trevor or Cat. Hermione would throw her questions from student to student, unabashed, while Audrey stayed a bit behind, playing with the rim of her skirt – the nice one her grandmother had bought her when she arrived in London, not the terrible thing that Hogwarts would make them wear.

Audrey never liked plain, boring black.

"Has anyone seen a toad or a big, fluff, brown cat? Neville and Audrey had lost their pets", Hermione said probably by the fifth time, opening another compartment door. By this time, Audrey could swear she knew the train by heart, the sound of the sliding doors and all that.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it", said one of the two boys in the cabin. Audrey played a bit more with her skirt, and peeked over Hermione's shoulder; the compartment had only two occupants, both of them probably around her age, even if the boy with messy black hair – Merlin forbid her grandmother ever seen a child with hair like that – looked smaller enough to be too young for Hogwarts.

Then her eyes grew twice in size, because the one with the pretty hair – flaming red, shining like cobalt with the sunlight – had his wand firmly clutched in his hand. "Hey, I'm Audrey, can I see what you are going to do?"

Both boys took their eyes from Hermione to her. She shuffled her feet and smiled sheepishly. Hermione didn't give the boys time to react, only sitting herself in the compartment, her dark Hogwarts robes dancing around her. For being a muggleborn, clearly not accustomed to robes, Hermione could use hers way better than Audrey did. "Let's see it, then", Hermione said.

"Er – all right", and the boy looked taken aback. "Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

Audrey cringed. Of course, she wasn't a full-grown witch and wasn't even near that, but being born in the magic world and probably couldn't do much more than that to save the life of hers, but Audrey at least knew spells aren't meant to sound like that.

Hermione instantly started her rant about how she learned all the course by heart, with her voice way too quickly to grasp everything. Audrey smiled apologetically at the two boys, who looked as lost as she did; honestly, she hadn't open none of her books, and she doubted that they did either.

"I'm Hermione Granger", the girl said, "and this is Audrey Blanchard. Who are you?"

"I'm Ron Weasley", the red-haired boy said, still stunned by the speed of her speech. Audrey noted he had something stuck at his nose.

She almost laughed thinking of her grandmother having a fit about this.

"Harry Potter", the other boy said meekly, his big, green eyes shining in something as embarrassment. Audrey held her breath – of course, she had been raised in a completely different world than most of her peers, in the other side of a ocean, in a city built by sun and the blur of stars, but even her knew who Harry Potter was.

She couldn't remember, of course, the day he had become famous, because she had been a toddler back then, worried with her toys and napping times. But she had heard, picked things here and there; usually, her dad hated talking about the war, and he never had spent time talking about those days with her.

But Audrey wasn't stupid. She had seen the pictures he kept in his office – the two older brothers who had been declared MIA back at then, with their bodies never found after a mission as Aurors. And most of all, she remembered the picture of the only relative who had some actual resemblance with Audrey – Eloise Blanchard, her aunt, who shared with Audrey the same dimples in the cheek and the same catlike eyes.

Eloise Blanchard who had been killed at sixteen years old in the year prior of the Voldemort demise.

Audrey always had goosebumps looking at her pictures. Eloise had been terrible young, brave, and intelligent by what her dad had told her and had been killed despite being the youngest daughter of a very old, very powerful pureblood line.

All before little Harry Potter had come along.

She always knew he was around her age, but she never had made the math. She had no idea he would be in her class.

"Really?", she squealed. "Ooooh, that's nice. I've heard about you".

He turned his eyes to her, suddenly looking really uncomfortable. "Yeah. Uhm, do you have an accent?"

"No. You do"

"I know all about you, of course — I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century." Hermione stopped they, suddenly very excited to be talking about books. Where the heck had she found time to read all of it? Audrey liked to read, but not things like that.

She liked things like Nancy Drew and The Baby-Sitter's Club. You know, the sappy things that muggles would write and girls like her would read in their bay window, definitely not heavy textbooks filled with dates (she hated dates) and names.

"Am I?", Harry asked, and Audrey almost pitied the boy.

"Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me", and Audrey really couldn't take Hermione's reason – had been her, she probably would have ordered every book with her name on it just to know what are people talking about her (what if someone had found her embarrassing baby pictures?).

"Do either of you know what House you'll be in? I've been asking Audrey, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad... Anyway, we'd better go and look for the pets. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon. Are you coming, Audrey?"

"Yeah", Audrey answered automatically. "If any of you guys see my cat, can you please hold her? She is nice, I swear, and I'm going to cry until next year if she got lost. Anyway, nice to meet you, guys. Bye!".

Then they left, with Neville hot in their trail and Audrey bit her lip. She had never spent a lot thinking about which house she would be just sorely because she couldn't care less. Her dad had made a fuss talking about what he liked in Hufflepuff – something about the nice common room and the closeness to the Kitchens – but Audrey hadn't paid him any mind.

If she only knew.

"Can you believe? Harry Potter is in the train", Neville said. "I didn't know he would come to Hogwarts this year".

"Well, Hogwarts is the only magic school in Britain, isn't? Where else his family would send him?", Hermione said promptly. "Hey, Audrey, I think its better if you go change. Neville and I can keep looking around; anyway, I suppose they will check the train after we left to get our luggage, so at some point someone is going to find Cat and Trevor".

Audrey whispered loudly and went to change.

Things could be worse, she thought to herself, while getting her uniform in her trunk and going to the bathroom. Hermione could be a bit petulant and even pedantic, but she was overall nice, and friendly enough to try and help her and Neville when the culprit of all this mess was solely Audrey.

Maybe she would want to be friends with Audrey.

Things couldn't be that bad.

If she only knew.


The rest of the travel was eventful. At some point, Hermione had left and found Cat curled up in the back of the train and coaxed her out of her hiding spot, and Audrey had hunt down the trolley lady to buy Hermione some chocolate as to say thank you, to which the girl only dismissed saying sugar would rot her teeth – something about her parents being both dentists. Then she went in a run down of how Harry Potter and his red-headed friend were already getting in trouble (Audrey made a mental note to stay the hell away from them).

The blonde girl made sure to lock Cat safely in her little cage.

They found Trevor hiding in a compartment full of seventh years who thought he was funny, and Neville had been ecstatic to have his toad back, only for him to run away again half an hour later. This time she at least had sure it wasn't her fault.

Audrey watched how the landscape slowly changed until all she could see was the purple sky after the sun had set and a lot of mountains. She never had been the best at geography, but she knew Hogwarts was somewhere in Scotland – and she never had been in Scotland before.

Definitely far away from home. Her chest hurt a bit while she thought about that.

Audrey slowly crawled her way out of the train, following all the other students that are fulfilling the corridor, with their conversations mixing up in the air, excited voices trailing about the new school year. She found herself in a small platform, flanked by Neville (still without Trevor) and Hermione, and the wind made her hair became a huge mess.

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?" Someone called, and Audrey followed the voice to find the biggest man she had ever seen. He was at least twice her dad's size, with a big hairy face and dark eyes; his voice was as deep as thunder, reverberating over the little first years following him, stumbling in their feet and new robes in a narrow path.

How far was Hogwarts, after all? She knew it was a castle, but would the school made then walk for miles until they found it? Why couldn't Hogwarts have a train station nearer their gates?

On Audrey's side, Hermione almost slipped a couple of times. By half of the way, the girls intertwined their arms to steadily themselves.

Suddenly, her eyes – still adapting to the low lights – fixed on a great lake, with calm and dark waters directly reflecting the full moon. "Do you think they will make us swim?", she murmured to Hermione, who shrugged.

"Unlikely. Look better, here are small boats on the lake".

But her eyes were already occupied, transfixed in the first vision of the castle – just the cutout of the many towers and turrets against the starry sky, in the top of one of the highest mountains. It looked like a painting, straight from one of the fairytales she liked to read as a child.

"No more'n four to a boat!", the man shouted, and Audrey followed Hermione to a boat with two other girls, while Neville went with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. But Audrey's mind was somewhere else, still enchanted by the vision of the castle ahead of her; she doubted that even Ilvermony was that beautiful, and she hadn't even seen Hogwarts totally.

Even Hermione, who always had something to say, was rendered speechless.

They clambered out of the little boats in an underground harbour, and Audrey made sure to keep herself steady and don't fall – how embarrassing that would be, when she heard their responsible saying he had found a toad. The girls smiled to each other, and Audrey made a pray to Neville keep the familiar safe and sound now.

All the little first years were put in a small chamber off the hall – who was probably the biggest hall Audrey had ever seen – by a tall, strict-looking witch with black hair in a bun and green robes. Audrey was way too close for comfort to a boy with blonde hair even fairer than hers – she thought for a second if he was a half-veela too – and Neville.

Professor McGonagall reminded Audrey a bit of her grandmother. Both had this look in their face of someone you don't want to cross – or the consequences would be grave – and voices that could make a crowd shut the hell up in minutes. She started the speech welcoming them to Hogwarts and talking about a Sorting Ceremony and that made Audrey really, nervous.

What are they expecting her to do? Maybe she would have to do a test? Answer questions about herself?

Audrey felt sick with the anxious. Why couldn't let they choose their own House? Why someone thought it was a good idea to label a bunch of eleven-year-olds with characteristics they would probably grow out in the next year?

At least she hoped she would. All her teenage books said she would have a growth spurt around next year or something like that and become a whole different person. Growing up and things like that.

Oh, and Hogwarts had ghosts. Ghosts. She had never seen a ghost back home – her dad would tell her stories of some nasty ones his father had found while travelling around the world – but she thought they were cool; at least the ones who greeted the first ones with some kindness.

Ghosts couldn't be that dangerous. Adults wouldn't let dangerous things around a school full of kids, right?

Right.

But if Audrey thought the exterior of the castle was breathtaking, the Great Hall was something else entirely, almost out of the muggle movies her dad would like to watch with her sometimes, a beautiful painting in so many colors. It was alive and drenched in magic, from the candles floating (she totally was going to ask to have those in her room, at home) to the tables, filled with older students – too many to count, even if Audrey didn't have dyscalculia.

But the best was the ceiling – it looked like a window directly to the core of the Milky Way, with the dark night sky looking like expensive velvet, dotted with little, silver stars like the sky had their own ghosts.

Behind her, Hermione whispered in her ear about the sky, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts: A History". Maybe Audrey should give a chance to heavy, boring textbooks if they could tell things about places like that.

In the end, the test that was making Audrey pretty much horrified was just as silly as anything she had ever seen. Just an old, plain, and patched hat, who looked as dirty as a rag. Couldn't someone from the staff use a cleaning spell or something like that in it?

But as ugly as it could be, in the end the Hat was magic as everything else around her, and it opened a very creepy mouth to sing a song. Audrey was too much anxious to truly appreciate it, but she thought it was supposed to be cool; a talking, singing hat, it was fitting for a school. Safe, like she thought.

Nothing to worry, really.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," Professor McGonagall said in her steady voice, "Abbott, Hannah!".

Abott, Hannah, was sorted in Hufflepuff just an instant after that. Audrey blinked, and then Professor McGonagall called, "Blanchard, Audrey".

She hurried, with the fingers playing around the rim of her skirt, a habit she could never let go since she was a small child, to the horror of her grandmother. Audrey gave McGonagall one of her award-winning smiles, just to be sure, but as she expected, it had no effect at all on the older witch. She sat in the stool with trembling legs and saw black.

"Oh, interesting. It was years since the last time we had someone like you… Half-veela, hm?", Audrey sucked air. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. Now, about the selection… Loyal, I see, the same downfall of your family. But you have too much fire to be a Hufflepuff. A bit of courage, not a bad mind… Maybe… Yeah, that's better… Where that mind of yours should be challenged because you have great things ahead of you…"

Audrey felt her heart in her throat, pulsing violently and she swore she was almost throwing up in the front of the whole school.

"SLYTHERIN!"

Audrey almost cried.


a/n: i'm back. thanks for the reviews and to everybody who favorited this fanfiction, it means a lot, really.
about this chapter: this a MONSTER of chapter, its long and i honestly don't know if its boring. anyway, i don't know if i'm going to make all the chapters this long, but never expected anything short, because i like to write. anyway, i hope you like it!
as said before, english isn't my first language, and editing this is a pain, because i need to reread all the cringe stuff i wrote, and i usually use 2 grammar and spell checkers, but if you spot something wrong PLEASE feel free to correct me. it helps a lot!
anyway, i love audrey. she is a bit annoying as a 11-year-old, but she has a LONG way to go.