Chapter 2:

Tearful Goodbyes and Hellos

September 1st

Aunt Petunia and I sat in a heavy silence as she drove me to King's Cross station. The past month had been an ordeal, to say the least. My going to Hogwarts was enough of an issue in and of itself, so that meant that Hagrid had to add fuel to an already volatile situation by mentioning my encounter with the Red Court vampire.

Thankfully they were too stunned by the news to react properly so I was able to see him off before the fireworks got started. Aunt Petunia had her head in her hands and was shaking and Vernon's face was rapidly turning purple. Dudley... well, Dudley just looked confused. Vernon looked ready to go tearing off after Hagrid. Whether it was due to concern for me or for his source of blood sausages I couldn't say, but remembering how easily Hagrid had handled my attacker I managed to convince Vernon to stay inside.

It was touch and go for a while but I managed to calm everyone down. Which I was thankful for, because there was talk of us moving to the colonies—their words not mine—and while I may be a proud Texan at heart, if the little I was able to read on it was anything to go by, Magical America was not a safe place to live in by any stretch of the imagination.

"Alex," Aunt Petunia said, pulling me from my thoughts, and I noticed that we were already parked. "We're here." Her knuckles were white from their tight grip on the steering wheel.

"I, uh, thanks for the ride," I said, pausing a moment to see if she would say anything, before opening my door and getting out. I was in the middle of retrieving my trunk, which was charmed to be feather light, when Aunt Petunia threw her door open, ran over to me and drew me into a tight hug. "Wha...?"

"You be careful, you hear me?" She said. Her grip was almost painful and her voice was rough as she continued, "I already lost my sister to this magic nonsense, don't let me lose you too."

"I will Aunt Petunia, promise," I said. It hurt to lie to her about this, but what choice did I have? I had a maniac out trying to kill me. For the next seven years at least I would have to take risks and be in danger whether I wanted to or not. Still, that didn't mean I had to be dumb about it. After taking care of the Horcruxes, or telling Dumbledore about them so he could take care of them, I would kill Voldemort with a sniper rifle from half a mile away. Though where I was going to get a sniper rifle, let alone learn how to use it, I did not know. At least, that was my current plan. "I promise I'll be careful."

"Good, and make sure you come back for Christmas," Aunt Petunia said, a pleading note in her voice. I nodded and with one last squeeze she let go, ruffled my hair, then got in the car and left. I sighed and glanced at my wand—holly and phoenix feather, what else—that I had been fingering the whole way here.

I still remembered how it felt when I got it. It was as if I was made whole, my magic felt both closer to the surface and calmer at the same time. It was intense.

"Well, enough stalling. Time to get this over with." I took a deep breath and went to meet my destiny.

My oddly train-shaped destiny.

888

Hermione, Hogwarts Express

I was excited. I was on a magic train headed towards a magic castle to learn magic from real life magic teachers. Up until a few months ago, if someone had said magic was real, let alone that there was an entire community of magic users hidden in the middle of London, I would not have believed them. In point of fact I would have gone on to tell said person just how unlikely I found it to be and quoted multiple sources so back up my viewpoint. Perhaps I would say to this proverbial person that they may want to go and see a doctor about their condition—there is medication for that now, you know? That was before Professor McGonagall had come to my home and made father levitate with a wave of her wand.

I had gotten to King's Cross station early and had already picked out a compartment, and was eagerly awaiting the coming trip and the possibility of making new friends—friends that I could impress with my hard-won knowledge of magic; some of those books were quite dry, thank you very much—when a head of fiery red hair opened the compartment door and asked if she could please join me. Then, after I said yes, she put her trunk away and sat down across from me.

"So, my name's Alexandrea Potter. What's yours?" The redhead Alexandrea Potter's voice was upbeat.

"Are you really? I've read all about you, you know. How you defeated the Dark Lord and stopped the last war. Is it true that he had red eyes?" I would have gone on had she not started laughing. I ducked my head, my first chance to make a new friend and she's already laughing at me. It was just like primary school all over again.

"I'm... hah, sorry, I'm not laughing at you, it's just I was all ready for people to freak out when they heard my name, but I didn't think someone would ask me about his eyes!" I sunk deeper into my seat and my blush deepened. "But yes I am, that's what they say, and yes he did have red eyes, bright red in fact. I don't think I caught your name." Alexandrea's head tilted to the left and a warm smile crossed her lips.

"Hermione. That is, my name is Hermione Granger. Pleased to meet you." Honestly, at least tell her your name first before you start talking her ear off.

"Pleased to meet you. Call me Alex." Alex offered me her hand and a beaming smile. Perhaps making friends wouldn't be so hard after all.

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Alex

Hermione was just like what I expected her to be—smart, inquisitive, and energetic. Still, it was weird to see her so young with the bushy hair and buck teeth. I suppose I was subconsciously thinking of Hermione's older self when I pictured meeting her.

"So what house do you think you'll be in? I'm hoping for Ravenclaw myself," I asked. I had put a lot of thought on which house I should try for. They all had their good points. That said, I planned to spend a lot of time researching spells and I liked reading, as in I spent most if not all of my free time reading, so Ravenclaw seemed like the best fit.

"I plan to try for Gryffindor. It was Dumbledore's house when he went to Hogwarts, you know," Hermione replied giddily. Her enthusiasm was infectious. I could feel my nerves easing.

"I had heard that. Still, you seem to be more of a Ravenclaw, why would you want to go to Gryffindor? Is that were your parents went?" I might not be able to lie, but pretending ignorance was much easier.

"What? No, my parents are dentists, I want to go to Gryffindor because that's where Dumbledore went and he's the greatest wizard of our age," Hermione said. Did she even breathe once during that whole speech? Hermione going to Gryffindor wasn't going to stop me from being friends with her, but it would make it more difficult and she wouldn't be happy there.

"Dentists, really? That's fun," try as I might I couldn't keep the slight grimace off my face. Dudley and I's last dentist visit ended with more than one root canal, for both me and Dudley. Needless to say I would be happy if I never returned to the Dentist's Office.

"Not really, no." Hermione was smiling as she said this, so I think she caught my reaction.

"Sorry, just my last visit was unpleasant," to say the least.

"No problem, that's the usual reaction. Daddy says that most people would rather hear that they have cancer from their doctor than get a call from the dentist." What were her parents' names again? I'm sure it was mentioned somewhere. Unfortunately my memories of my last life were not as clear as I would like, so at least until I mastered Occlumency, something which Diagon Alley had nothing on, I was forced to make do with half-remembered tidbits of information.

"Yeah, I—" was as far as I got before someone opened the door.

"Is Alex Potter in here? I know she's on the train, Father told me. So is she in here?" Ah, Draco Malfoy. Blond hair, blue eyes, and a sense of entitlement that seemed to permeate him. With how different this universe is, Red Court vampires and the White Council came to mind, I was wondering if Draco might have changed for the better. I had managed to avoid him on my trip to Diagon Alley, so this was my first time meeting him. Fortunately it seems my worries of leather pants were unfounded.

"That'd be me. Who, may I ask, are you?" Just because he was, apparently, the same little douche from canon didn't mean I couldn't be polite. I didn't need more enemies—Voldemort was more than enough, thank you very much.

"Draco Malfoy." He pronounced it with a slight elongation of the 'a' in Draco. Odd, why would he say it like that? "And these are Crabbe and Goyle," again with the slight elongations. What's going on? My eyes widened as it hit me—Vampire Courts, the White Council, Dresden.

True Names.

True Names—a capital N is definitely called for here—are dangerous. If you knew someone's Name, and you had magic, you had power over them. It was comparable to having a guided missile, except targeted specifically at a person and loaded with whatever magic you put into it. Perhaps a better comparison would be Voodoo dolls; put something of the targets, their blood or hair for example, on one and you could cause them great misfortune. Only, if you knew their Name you didn't need the doll, hair or blood. The Name alone was more than enough.

Everyone had their own Name, usually what you were named at birth, but it tended to change over time when the way you viewed yourself changed. At least if I was remembering that correctly. I just gave my True Name to Hermione. Not that she was likely to abuse it, and if she did I had hers too, so it was not the end of the world, but…

"Erm, hello?" While I was having my little panic attack I had apparently spaced out long enough for the gathered children to get worried. Hermione was actually waving her hand in front of my face. I gave her a quick nod before standing and offering Draco my hand.

"Apologies, it's been a long day. My name is Alex Potter. Nice to meet you." I'm sure I was breaking a thousand pureblood decorum rules by shaking his hand, but I had to get him out of here so I could think. Besides, I was muggle raised and I think that was a well-known fact, he probably expected me to walk with a limp and make house-elves seem articulate. A little well-meaning faux pas was unlikely to hurt me in the long run. Still, I made sure to mispronounce my name just in case. "Were you wanting to join my friend and me? I'm sure we can make room if you would like?"

"And who's this? I don't recognize her and I know all the purebloods and half-bloods that are going to Hogwarts this year." By the end of his question his mouth had started to twist into a sneer.

"My name is Hermione, and of course you wouldn't recognize me. I just heard about magic this past summer." Hermione's voice had taken on an offended tone. I guess she saw the sneer. Now how do I salvage this?

"Yes, Hermione's the first witch in her family. Isn't that exciting?" I gave Draco my biggest smile, inviting him to join in on my happiness at this joyous prospect. "So did you want to come in?" By implying just how ok I was with Hermione's muggle-born status I hoped to either convince him to leave or, if he stayed, cause him to sit in an awkward silence so that I would have a chance to think.

"No, no, that's ok. I just wanted to introduce myself. Now that I've done that I'll take my leave." He beat a hasty retreat. Ha!

"What was that all about?" Hermione, right. Some people are racist idiots. Now how to explain that to an impressionable eleven year old?

"Umm, going by what I've heard, some of the old pureblood families look down on first-gen witches." There, that works.

"I know, Professor McGonagall mentioned it." Oh well, that's good. "I was asking about you zoning out. Are you feeling alright?"

"Noticed that, did you? It was nothing." A raised eyebrow was her only response. "Fine, have you heard of True Names? When Draco was introducing himself he pronounced his name oddly and that made me wonder why, which made me remember about True Names."

"Professor McGonagall said you should be careful when you introduce yourself and never give out your middle name, because a bad witch or wizard could use it against you. She said that as long as you do that you don't have to worry." Her voice had taken on a very prim and proper accent, making me think she was reciting the whole thing from memory.

"Oh, huh, that's good, worried for nothing I guess." I wasn't convinced, but it's not like there was anything I could do about it now. Still, I resolved to mispronounce my name slightly when introducing myself from now on.

888

The rest of the train ride passed in a comfortable silence, with both Hermione and I lost in our respective books. Mine was the first year Charms book and hers was Hogwarts: A History.

It wasn't until we were almost at Hogwarts that we finally changed into our robes. Really, we just pulled them over the clothes we were already wearing before heading outside after the train stopped.

"So where do we go now?" Hermione sounded nervous. "The older students are already leaving. Should we follow them?" I was about to interrupt her when I heard Hagrid over the din of the gathered students.

"First years, first years this way!"

"I'm going to hazard a guess that we go that way." I gave a laugh at her 'no really' look.

"Hagrid, good to see you," I said, and it was. My run-in with the Red vampire was frightening to the extreme, even if it had nothing on Voldemort. It had, in fact, featured in several of my nightmares since then. But still, it was nice to see him. Hagrid was a pleasant sort, his tendency to eviscerate people in front of traumatized eleven year old girls aside.

"Alex! Good to see yeh, good to see yeh. How've ya been?" Hagrid seemed to be in a fine mood tonight.

"Good, and you?" I asked. I held out my fist to Hagrid, he seemed confused for a moment but started grinning as he remembered. We then proceeded to bump fists. One fist hits the top of the other, repeat with the positions reversed, and one last hit on the knuckles before pulling back and shaking your hand while making an exploding sound. We got more than a few odd looks.

"Alright, everyone follow me!" Hagrid started down the road towards the very big lake. As Hermione and I boarded the vessels at the edge of the lake, a dark haired kid approached us and asked if he could share our boat.

"So what's your name?" Hermione asked.

"Neville Longbottom…"

Whatever else Neville said I couldn't hear. Hogwarts had just come into view and my magic sense was practically deafened. It was intense, more so than even Voldemort, a thousand times his power but none of his vileness. I smelled books and ink, I tasted laughter and the relieved-of-stress feeling of a hard job finally completed. I was lost in a slew of sensations, most of which I could not identify. I don't know how long I was out of it, but after what seemed like hours, even if it could have only been a few minutes at most, I felt myself being studied by something. A sense of amusement pushed the rest of the sensations away, before fading away itself.

By the time I came to we were already in the antechamber leading to the Great Hall. I was giggling helplessly and the rest of the first years were sending me weird looks. Hermione at least looked concerned and that, for some reason, set off a whole new round of giggles from me before Professor McGonagall entered.

I attempted to stop laughing, and I mostly succeeded as we entered the Great Hall, though some giggles escaped despite my best efforts as we waited for the hat to stop singing.

"Abbott, Hannah…" Professor McGonagall held out a piece of parchment and stated calling out names. When she finally got to "Perks, Sally-Anne," I narrowed my eyes at the girl with the Sorting Hat on her head. Bitch. I kept glaring at her as she went to the Hufflepuff table. Lazy Bitch.

"Potter, Alexandrea," I shook my head and headed over to the Sorting Hat before taking a deep breath to try and settle my nerves. I sat down on the stool and dropped the Hat onto my head.

"My now, isn't this interesting? A past life, one in which this reality is but a work of fiction. No, no, there's no need to worry, I'm not biding my time to take over the world. I may be intelligent, but I am not human—ruling the world holds no interest for me... Send you to Slytherin? Why would I do that? Your only ambition is to survive long enough to kill Voldemort before he can kill you. You certainly have the loyalty of a Hufflepuff, willing to die for those you call your own, to kill for them. Your irrational hatred of Miss Perks aside, you are willing to come to the aid of those you do not know, the mark of a true Gryffindor. Still, you love reading and learning far too much to be anything other than… Ravenclaw!"

"Irrational my ass," I muttered as I took off the Sorting Hat and headed over to the Ravenclaw table. I was surprised to see Hermione there. How out of it was I to have missed her sorting?

888

It said something about how buzzed I was that it wasn't until I was halfway through my second glass of pumpkin juice that I realized what I was drinking. Eww.

"Water, please." No sooner had I asked than my goblet was replaced. "Thank you."

I took a moment to look around the Great Hall. It was amazing, high walls with stone carvings of winged animals with fire hanging from their mouths and hundreds of candles floating around in the air before disappearing into the night sky, or rather the enchanted ceiling.

"Beautiful..." my voice was soft.

"Rowena Ravenclaw enchanted it, I read about it in Hogwarts: A History!" Hermione's voice, on the other hand, was very excited.

"Decided you'd look better in blue, I take it," I teased her. My smile widened at her response.

"I will have you know that the Sorting Hat said 'if I didn't go to Ravenclaw then he wasn't doing his job right.'" She finished with an offended huff. I guess she had been really hoping for Gryffindor.

"Funny, he told me he had 'no interest in ruling the world.'" I took far too much pleasure in her baffled look. I couldn't help it, I started giggling. Again. Hermione made a groaning sound.

"Not again. I had to practically drag you out of the boat and poor Neville had to help and he almost dropped you in the lake. He spent the whole way in apologizing and you just kept giggling at him. What. Is. Wrong. With. You?" By the end she was almost growling. She was actually worried about me!

"Sorry, I'm not sure what happened," and wasn't that the truth. "One moment I was fine, the next I felt like I was hit with the world's strongest tickling charm." Which wasn't quite what happened, but until I got to know Hermione better I wasn't taking any chances. There were enough differences with this universe that I was far from comfortable with simply trusting her based solely on my half-remembered memories of what she should be like.

I was saved from further questioning when Dumbledore stood and called for attention.

"I have to say it is truly marvelous to see you all, new students and old, for another year here at Hogwarts. Some start of term announcements; the Forbidden Forest is, as the name implies, forbidden. Of course, there are always some of you who like to challenge that rule." He paused and looked meaningfully over his half-moon spectacles at the Gryffindor table, where someone had started whistling innocently. "Still for those of you still willing to risk the Forest, please note that if you do, you will most likely be eaten by giant man eating spiders. The list of banned items has now reached six-hundred and fifty-four, and Mr. Filch has the complete list posted on his office door should you want more information. One final thing before I let you go; if you do not wish to suffer a most horrible death, please stay out of the third floor corridor."

It was how calmly he said it, I think, that set me off. I started giggling. Again. Thankfully, by then all the students were talking about it and I was safely ignored. By everyone except Hermione, that is. She just shot me an annoyed look before rolling her eyes.

888

The Ravenclaw prefects, Gerould Johnson and Sara Hemingway (no relation), lead the first years through Hogwarts to the Ravenclaw tower. It was such a long trek and had so many stairs that I was quite grateful when we finally arrived. At an eagle-shaped doorknocker. That gave us riddles. Which we had to answer correctly if we wanted to get inside.

This filled me with some dread. I was good at logic puzzles, but riddles could be so convoluted as to be undecipherable. I was already picturing many a long hour spent outside the entrance waiting for someone else to come along and let me in.

As I contemplated that horror and planned some countermeasures to fight off the boredom that would ensue during my enforced wait, we entered the common room.

It was big. Not half as big as the Great Hall, but large nonetheless, with a fireplace on one side and a wall of books opposite to it, with various couches and chairs in-between, as well as two staircases going up. All done up in blue and bronze, Ravenclaw's house colors.

"You are all Ravenclaws, so I should only have to say this once." Doesn't Johnson sound friendly? "I expect that you will all keep your grades up to EE or better. If you need help, there are tutoring sessions with the sixth year volunteers on Saturdays."

"What he means to say is, as Ravenclaws we know you are smart. You wouldn't be here if you weren't. If you need help, ask and go to tutoring. If you get lost, ask a portrait for directions. Hogwarts has a tendency to change when you're not looking and they are the only ones who can keep track of where things are. I also recommend that you all do your homework together. If there are no more questions, the girls' rooms are up the left staircase, boys' to the right, two to a room. You can decide who you want to room with. First years' rooms are on the third floor. They will be your rooms for your entire stay here at Hogwarts." With that, Sara wished us good night. Hermione gave me a glance, to which I nodded, and started heading up the left staircase, leaving the others to sort out who to room with among themselves.

The room Hermione and I chose was a little more than twice the size of my room back at Privet Drive. There were two canopy beds with a window between them and desks on either side of the door.

"So which bed do you want?" Hermione asked.

"I'll take the one on the right." As soon as I said that my trunk appeared at the foot of the bed. Hermione made an affirmative sound, sounding more tired than I felt. It had been a very long day. "Goodnight Hermione."

"Goodnight Alex."

888

Stairs were my greatest enemy in my last life and, even though I've used my second chance at life to stay in shape, I still did not like them. Hogwarts was practically made of stairs. Not just normal stairs, but ones that made a habit of only being there for every third student, or stairs that gained an inch in height when you least expected it. Not only that, but entire staircases had a tendency to move, either when you were about to get on them or after you were already on them. It was a miracle anyone made it to class alive, let alone on time.

The Ravenclaw first years and I had taken nearly an hour to get to the Great Hall. We got lost three times and had to ask five different portraits for directions, one of them twice—we had somehow gone in a circle—before finally getting to breakfast.

I was just finishing my breakfast when Professor Flitwick, who had introduced himself to the first years last night before the prefects had taken us to the tower, came over. He was surprisingly spry for a three foot half-goblin and he moved with a quick gait that ate up more ground than it looked like it should.

"Miss Potter, how are you this fine morning?" Professor Flitwick asked, perky did not even begin to describe how his voice sounded to me. No one should sound that happy in the morning. I mean, I could be energetic in the morning but my first night in a new place and— "Miss Potter?"

"Ah, sorry, long night, I'm a little tired is all, but good. And you?" I replied. Really need to work on my spacing out thing.

"I'm sorry to hear that. A new place, unfamiliar people, can make for a hard transition. If you want to talk, please know that my door is open." He was sincere as far as I could tell.

"I will keep that in mind, Professor. Are one of those my schedule?" I pointed at the stack of parchment floating behind him.

"What? Oh, oh yes, here you are!" One of the schedules settled in front of me. "But that's not why I'm here. Headmaster Dumbledore would like to speak with you in his office. After I finish handing out the schedules I'll take you up to speak with him."

"Okay Professor." As he walked away I wondered what Dumbledore could want to talk to me about. I hadn't even done anything yet.

"Dumbledore wants to talk to you already. What do you think it's about?" Padma Patil managed to ask me seconds before Hermione, who contented herself with a questioning nod in my direction. Though she did give Padma a look.

"I don't know. I couldn't have done anything yet. I've been around y'all since I got here." It should be noted that while I speak fluent British, when I'm stressed I have a tendency to slip into my Texan roots. I have thankfully been able to blame it on my, totally fabricated, love of country Westerns. Thankfully no one noticed my slip, but I needed to be careful. "I'm sure it's nothing. He probably just wants to see how I'm doing or something." Way to sound confident.

"You have to tell me how it goes. Maybe he knows why you couldn't stop laughing yesterday and wants to talk about it, or maybe he's going to..." Thankfully I was saved from more fun theories from Hermione when Professor Flitwick arrived.

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The walk to Professor Dumbledore's office was long and winding. How do people find their way in this place? Professor Flitwick and I spent most of it talking about Charms. I was particularly interested in the 'Point Me' charm. I thought, as I told professor Flitwick, that if I used it correctly I could use it to help me when I was trying to find something specific in a book. He awarded me three points for 'inventive use of a charm' and then proceeded to show me a spell made specifically for that purpose. Sadly it was beyond my current abilities, but I made sure to memorize it as best I could for future practice. I was going to call it the Google Charm and it was going to be very useful. Once I could actually cast it.

Our conversation lasted until we were standing in front of the gargoyle leading to Dumbledore's office.

"Sherbet lemon. I shall see you in Charms class later today, Miss Potter." With that he waved goodbye and the gargoyle moved aside, revealing a staircase leading up towards Dumbledore's office. I narrowed my eyes.

"Stairs." After a moment of glaring at them I sighed and started heading up, but no sooner had I started than the stairs started moving on their own. "Huh, was not expecting that."

I had reached the top of the stairs and was about to knock when I heard through the door, "Please come in, Miss Potter." The door opened before I could touch it.

As I got my first look at Dumbledore's office I decided that all the fanfics describing him as insane had to be right. There were toys and trinkets lined up on his shelves, most of which were making some form of noise or another. Rows of portraits lined the walls and their occupants were trying their best to appear sleeping. In the middle of it all, behind a magnificent wooden desk, sat Dumbledore in all his twinkling glory.

If my memories could be trusted, and it was looking more and more like I should be taking them with a grain of salt, Dumbledore was a driving force in my life. It was at his behest that my parents went into hiding. It was his decision to send me to the Dursleys, something that would have ended horribly if they were what canon portrayed them as. It was also his wards that failed to protect my parents when Voldemort came for me.

Dumbledore was a Power, one who would be in my life whether or not I wanted him to be. If he was the manipulative schemer or the overtly evil Dark Lord behind the throne, as fanfiction so loved to portray him, I was in for a rough time. If, on the other hand, he was as he appeared to be, a well-meaning mentor, my path could be much smoother. Dumbledore would either be my greatest ally or my greatest enemy after—or perhaps even before—Voldemort. I just had to figure out which.

Joy.