Disclaimer: Unfortunately I am not richer than the Queen of England and I do not own Harry Potter like JKR, so I am stuck with Kira, Alexander and thier sad predicaments as my only worldy possesions.

Chapter 3: A New Book

Stepping back from the entrance way, Kira turned and trudged back towards the Great Hall. Her stomach twisted and growled in complaint at the hovering smell of freshly made biscuits and pan-fried bacon drifting out into the castle halls.

She straightened her overly- large robes so that they didn't seem quite so lopsided and headed to the Hufflepuff table. She adjusted them, fussing over her long sleeves as she sat down and began to pile food onto her plate.

"Good Morning!"

One of the girls, Lilac Jones, besides her passed her a napkin.

"G' morning, Lilac." Kira said quietly between mouthfuls. "What's the news for today?"

Lilac had always been a big gossiper, but she was quite useful when the right information made it to her ears. She didn't really have much to say today except for a few juicy tidbits on the newest couples in the neighboring houses.

"Well I heard that Harry Potter just recently had a run-in with Umbridge over You- Know- Who and got himself landed in detention." A girl named Anne Coutler spoke up, her honey colored hair swept over her shoulder as she sniffed in a rather haughty manner.

"Detention, already?" Lilac lit up, "It's only been a week since classes started!"

A fifth year across from them, Susan Bones, interjected, "Yah, I heard that also, I've also heard a particularly nasty rumor that Umbridge uses Blood Quills."

Lilac gasped while Anne simply rolled her eyes, "Apparently he and Umbridge got into a row about how the ministry is lying about the return of You-Know-Who, it's a whole lot o' rubbish if you ask me."

"My Aunt works for the ministry and she believes it, she and my family are behind Professor Dumbledore all they way."

Anne and Lilac made no response to this.

Kira had stopped listening to them somewhere in the middle of the conversation and was currently in thought. She had never really thought about this deeply before even thought the thought of it had been scratching at the back of her mind for sometime now.

"It is possible that he has returned," She thought. "But then why hasn't he done anything?"

Kira had dropped her fork and was now simply staring blankly into her plate. Now that it had occurred, a disturbing thought came back into to her mind.

"If Voldemort has returned, then does that mean that Professor Snape has gone back to being a Death Eater? Have they all gone back?"

Kira continued on this until the students began filing out of the hall swiftly hurrying to their morning classes. Abandoning her thoughts, she swooped up her bag and followed a group up to the Transfiguration classroom where she hurried in to take her seat in the second row and sat down listening attentively.

"Today we will be learning a defensive spell that is often used in the subject of Transfiguration that allows a person to transfigure a object of whatever value into one that is seen as common or useless in order to hide it. For example, if you had something of value to you and did not wish others to see it or for it to be stolen, you might transfigure it with this spell into something common, like a clock or a spoon."

Professor McGonagall walked swiftly over to a golden goblet on her desk.

"Observe." Then with a flick of her wand, she uttered, "Obscuro!"

The goblet began to shrink and turned in to a old, worn sock.

"And then to change it back," With another flick of her wand, "Ilobscuro!" and the ugly sock changed back into a goblet.

"Each of you has an object on your desks. I want you to attempt the first spell and then the second. You may begin"

At that, the class erupted into a cacophony of murmurs. Some of the students began to get irritated, jabbing their objects forcefully with their wands and flicking them violently with no avail. A good number in the very front and around Kira had managed the spell quite gracefully and were now changing their objects back. Sadly, she herself had never been very talented in any subjects and now stared dismally at the decorated piece of parchment in front of her.

Finally Kira flicked her wand and muttered the spell, but strangely, the piece of paper just curled up and erupted into flames. A few girls began to giggle as Professor McGonagall walked over and sniffed at her charred object.

"How on earth did you manage that?" she said.

Kira could feel the blood begin to gather at her cheeks as she opened her mouth to speak, but then McGonagall sighed and flicked her wand once more and replaced the parchment with a gold coin.

"Well no matter, try again and with a little more clarity this time, Ms. Price."

Kira eventually was able to perform both spells with no problems but not without having to endure the embarrassment of being the last in her class to achieve this and the seemingly endless laughing of the group of girls, (That she had figured to be in both Ravenclaw and her house) who had now decided to make her their new victim leaving poor little Norris Borgin, another Hufflepuff, to his devices.

Looking back on the things that they had done to Norris, Kira had an awful feeling that this was only the beginning. She had dealt with this before in her own house during her first year, her unusual interest in the Dark Arts and Ancient Magic did not fare well with the others and the fact that she looked so unbearably awkward had not helped either.

"At least I've grown out of my knobbly knees…" She thought hopefully, "They'll lose interest in me eventually."

Professor McGonagall dismissed them for the day, but not without promptly assigning them with usual load of a three foot essay and practice; there would be a quiz on what they had learned the next day. Kira rushed out the door and down to the second corridor to Charms where she quickly ran through her schedule in her head: Transfiguration, Charms, DADA, Divination and Astronomy, and last but not least, Potions. Hopefully she would not mess up too badly in that class today.

Charms and DADA had gone by as quickly as they could and Kira was loaded down with more homework such as another essay on "The Practical Uses of Levitation" and a summary of chapter three in their Defense Against The Dark Arts class which wasn't all that bad, seeing as they didn't really do that much in class except read.

Finally lunch came around and Kira was able to run to the library with Lilac after getting a quick bite to eat where they quickly began searching for books on defensive transfiguration.

"This is a whole lot harder than I thought it would be!" Lilac exasperated, slamming a large book entitled "The Trifles and Toils of Transfiguration, by C.C. Oldebee" down on the table causing one of Kira's stacks to fall over. "There's hardly anything on defensive transfiguration!"

"Shhh!!" Madame Pince scolded.

"Old bat…" Lilac muttered under her breath.

"I found a few, but there's not much inside them." Kira whispered handing Lilac a few books, "I'll go look for some others."

"Good luck with that."

Kira looked through shelves and shelves of books, and eventually she ended up in the back section of the library where she almost immediately spotted a very old and very heavy book accurately christened, "Defensive Magic and Spells". The subject that she was looking for had to be in that book. Kira gripped the spine of the book with both hands and tried to pull it out, but the book seemed to be stuck in the shelf. She hoisted one foot up against the shelf and tugged the book with all her might and it slid free in a cloud of dust.

"Ha!" she whispered silently to herself. "I bet McGonagall was just waiting for someone to find you!"

With the big book entrapped in her arms, Kira was about to walk back to the table when a small glimmering inside the hole that the book had left in shelf, caught her attention. She moved in closer reached inside and felt something narrow and dusty.

"A book?" she thought and pulled it out into the open.

The thing was terribly old, the spine was cracking and the engraved title had long since faded leaving only little traces of gold where the letters had been. The pages were yellowed and cracked, and some were barely hanging on. On the very first page, there was written in spidery calligraphy, "Spirites in Time, The Magik of Olde". Kira's eye's widened in amazement at her new discovery as she flipped carefully through the pages. There were elaborate illustrations of conjurations and elemental magic, there were chapters after chapters on ancient magic that had been forgotten. She had only heard of these things because of the vast amount of strange books that her great aunt kept at the house, but they only gave definitions, this book had spells and instructions and… just everything!

Kira closed her new book in excitement and began to walk back when a dreary thought came across her mind.

"Would Madame Pince really allow something like this to be checked out? Most of this is bordering Dark magic…it actually looks like it has been hidden back there for quite some time... better not risk it.." With this, she quickly walked over to the table and shoved the narrow book into her bag, hoping that no one had noticed.

"Where have you been? It took long enough, did you find anything?" Lilac asked.

"Yes." Kira smiled, "As a matter of fact, I did…"

Lilac and she laughed together in their triumph over the heavy book that Kira had pulled from the shelf and hastily copied down every bit of information that they could find on defensive transfiguration and parted ways to make it to afternoon classes.

Kira sat on her pouf in the Divination classroom in the tower and waited for class to begin with the others. There were a few of every House in this class and Kira found herself next to a pale, dark haired Slytherin with icy eyes and sharp features, his face came alive when Professor Treawnley floated in all misty and covered in shawls.

The Professor looked around the classroom and spoke in a wavering voice, "Today we will be looking into the mystic dimensions of the future. Turn your gaze to the crystal balls that sit between you and look into them, write what you see and explain any symbols that may be there."

Everyone began sighing or muttering about different things, turning towards their crystal balls and writing whatever nonsense that may have popped into their mind. The Professor floated from table to table giving a shake of her head here and an "Oooh, my dear!" there, looking sadly at one student or another. Kira turned to hers and stared blankly into the glass, seeing nothing and she couldn't think of anything to write that wouldn't seem too stupid, so she sat in boredom as thoughts from the earlier parts of the mornning came sneaking back into view...

"I wonder how long I will have to keep this a secret... I mean it's not like I can go back to the ministry with it, it's been eight years... would they believe me? Would Professor Dumbledore let him teach here if he knew that he was a Death Eater?" Kira turned to the Crystal orb once more looking deeply into the glass, "Is it possible that he may have changed?...That he's different now?" As her eyes comtinued to look into the transcluent mass, a small dark cloud began to form in the center of it. Kira froze as she watch the cloud grow, getting larger and larger until a small bit of light shined through it, and then the image disappeared all together.

"Strange isn't it?" Kira looked up to see the dark haired Slytherin looking at her. "What people think that they can see in a crystal ball?"

"What do you see?" Kira responded quietly.

"A growing flame."

He began to write quickly on a piece of parchment.Kira stared after him for a moment and soon did the same. Soon, the foreboding voice of the professor drifted through the room.

"Now I want to talk to you all of the future in the skies, lift your eyes and look..." She continued droning on about the symbols in the skies and the many signs of imminent death. Pretty soon all of her words faded into nonsensical mutterings that murmered constantly in the back of Kira's mind as she slipped out her newly found book and began reading it behind the table. She stopped at that illustration of a circle lined with runes and read the script beneath it:

"Call forthe the powers binded to the mind and thrust them outward withe the soul. Withe this power thou shall be entitled to all designs of magik that showest itself in thy wake. Snap thy wand and use thy heart, thy blood, and thy mind to perform all conjurations..."

"What are you reading?" the Slytherin whispered leaning over, "That's a symbol of conjuration!"

"I know.." Kira replied, eyeing him warily. "It's a book I found in the library.."

The boy narrowed his eyes at her, "That's borberline Dark Magic , you know."

She leaned toward him and whispered fearfully, "Yes, I know... it was hidden, I slipped it out. Please don't tell!"

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know...you never know what people will do...I just find really interesting, i've never been able to find one that actually gave instruction on ancient magic."

"Instruction?" He leaned over took take a look, but Kira pulled back eyeing him suspiciously.They stared at each other.

"What are you intentions? I don't mean to stereotype you, but I don't want to show this to anyone who has bad intentions for it."

He opened his mouth but then closed and looked at her for a moment before speaking, "What could I say for you to trust me? Would you believe me?" He frowned darkly at her.

Suddenly the signal sounded for the end of class and Kira quickly got up to go, but then stopped and gave him a small smile, "No, I don't think I would believe you, but you could always try and show me...what's your name?"

His expression lightened and he said, "Alexander,- Alexander Vardon.What's yours?"

"Kira Price...I'll see you tomorrow Alex, and maybe you'll get to see my book." she grinned and turned to leave.

Kira's smile began to fade as she walked slowly down to the dungeons, all of her abandoned thoughts from earlier were coming back to her at full force, knocking her brain around and giving her quite a headache. She hadn't had the chance to drop of her library books at her dorm, so she had been forced to take them with her. The large and heavy Defense text was causing her arms to ache and her spine to curve into an awkward posture causing her to walk even slower. She swore that the stairs had changed three times before she made it down to the ground floor and even then, she had quite a ways to go. By the time she made to the classroom door, Kira was so jumbled up in her thoughts that it took her a while to notice a long pair of blacks shoes on the ground in front of her. Shifting herself under the weight of the book in an ever weirder posture than before, she looked up into nothing but darkness.

"Uh-oh.." she thought.

"You're late." it hissed staring down at her.

Kira swallowed and said nothing, you did not talk back to Professor Snape.

"Ten points from Hufflepuff." he said pointing towards the classroom, "In."

She nodded walked as fast as she could to a dark space near the wall on the second row and set all of her things down with some difficulty. When she sat down and began to set up the Professor spoke:

"Today you will be brewing a rather difficult potion called 'The Spirit's Breath', it is normally substituted as it requires the use of blood from the brewer, but no other potion gives the full effect that it can. If on hand at the time and administered within minutes, this potion can prolong the life of whomever it is given too. You are to follow the instrutions exactly, even the slightest of mistakes can ruin it." Then he flicked his wand to the board in front of the classroom where the instructions appeared, "Begin."

Kira looked up at the board in disbelief, she had never seen a more complex potion! She sighed deeply and got quickly to work, gathering up all of the ingredients and adding them one by one in the proper order until her concotion turned a pale shade of lilac as the directions predicted.

"Good, now all that's left is...the ounce of blood, boomslang, aaaaand belladona..." She looked down ready to prick her thumb when she saw that Norris Borgin was about to add Devil's Root instead of the Bruskin bile. She grabbed his wrist in a swift movement, trying to get it away from the simmering cauldron.

"No! Norris, wait!" she yelled. Too late. The cauldron began to hiss,i t bubble and splashed on to Norris, making him break out into painful boils. It finally bean to shake violenty knocking the entire bag of Boomslang skin into Kira's cauldron.

"Oh no..." she whispered.

"Thirty points from Hufflepuff! You're worse that Longbottom, Borgin!" Snape bellowed walking briskly over to Norris's now overflowing cauldron, turning his back to Kira's. Norris was whimpering while the Professor charmed his cauldron and sent him to the Hospital wing.

"Get out!" Snape yelled. The cauldron behind him was knocking and splashing around feverently and began to build. Kira threw herself at the Professor knocking him over.

"MOVE!" She screamed, getting in front of him. Suddenly, right as the potion exploded, a bubble-like barrier formed around her and the cauldron. The other students watched in terror, untouched, as the boiling liquid showered the back of Kira's robes burning like acid. Kira opened her eyes and gave a yelp as she ripped off her outer robe and watched it incinerate into the puddle where black flames burst forth and ate everything into ruin including the cauldron.

"At least I remembered to move my things farther away before I started." she thought gloomily

The classroom was silent for a moment, and all eyes were on Kira as she looked over the ashes. The signal for the end of class sounded and the others began filing out muttering behind her:

"Look at her back!"

Her back. The acidic stuff had burned some of the fabric off the back of her shirt. All of them could see the ugly and twisted scar that stretched across her back. It was an after effect of the curse that was thrown at her the night of her parents death. It had grown deep and had a sickly reddish-purple color to it.

"What happened to her arms?!"

She had forgotted about her burn scars too, among others that marred her forearms and she turned them protectively against herself in an effort to hide them. Soon the only ones left in the room were Kira, Professor Snape, and Norris.

"Are you alright Kira?" Norris asked hesitantly.

"Yes Norris, i'm fine."

"But you were drowned in that potion! Hey what 're you doin'?"

Kira spotted something in the mess an moved forward to pick it up. It was the page from her ancient book that she had read, right where her cauldron had been, the large symbol stained in purple liquid stared garishly back at her as she held it up in front of her.

"...Conjuration!..." she said out loud to herself.

"What?"

"Con-" she cut herself off at the sight of Professor Snape staring down at her with an unreadable expression.

"You may go." he said. Norris shuffled forward and Kira made a move but was stopped by a voice. "Not you."

Norris glanced warily back at her before moving out.

"Give that to me." he said extending his arm out with an open hand. Kira lifted her arm and set the paper in it but then froze at the sight before her. The Dark Mark...vivid as ever...it really was him. It jerked out of sight and she darted her eyes up to him. His expression was twisted into a horrible mixture of fury and fear together and he moved ba"ck a step holding his arm to his chest. Kira stood glued into place, feeling pathetically small as she put her skinny arms down by her side and looked at the floor. The silence was deafening.

"What do I do?...What can I say...what do you say to the person who helped kill your family?" She started shaking a bit as the thoughts from Divination came back to her..."Is it possible that he may have changed?...That he's different now?", "Should I run and tell or face him on my own...just about the mark?..." Kira was about to scream in fustration and fear when she remembered what that stupid hat had told her..."Do what is right in your heart...".

Kira lifted her pale moon eyes and looked into his. She pressed her lips together and then finally broke the silence.

"It's okay, ..really...I-I already knew," she faltered. "I just wasn't sure...no one else does, though...well, except for the hat..."

"Great. Now I'm babbling" she thought. He was staring at her now with a curious expression.

"The hat?" he said cautiously.

"Y-yes, the sorting hat. I've known since my first year, but I never said anything be-" Kira stopped at the sound of footsteps outside the door.

"Hem hem..." A sickly sweet little voice uttered coming in. "Professor Snape, I don't mean to interupt but I have some matters to discuss with you." Umbridge looked over at Kira, her fussy little cardigan puffing out as she spoke. "You may go dear. I wish to speak to Professor Snape in private."

Kira's eyes widened as she looked from Umbridge to Snape. He simply stood there expressionless before he finally said, "Go."

"Yes sir." she whispered gathering her things as she ran out the door to her dorm, she could feel his eyes burning into her back the entire way there.

Well there's chapter three! I hoped you liked it.. R&R plz, ibegyou, plz.