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Thank you SO MUCH to EmeraldSwan92 for leaving me a REVIEW! First review ever! Woo!

Sorry, I get excited. Oh, and also, side note here, this fanfiction is in Astoria Greengrass's POV. Some people on Instagram got confused when I posted it on there, so I just wanted to clear that up for everybody.

Happy reading, everyone!

Chapter 01-2

April

"So, are all your things packed?" my mother asked me.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Mom, I'm positive," I shifted my shoulders around and tried to make the place around my stitches stop itching. It didn't work, and it hurt, so I just left it.

I had decided to go to Hogwarts despite April's death; the more I thought about it, the more I knew that it was what she would have wanted me to do. Prior to leaving the house, my mother kissed both me and Daphne on the cheek and said, "Girls, it'll be crowded in King's Cross, so I just want to tell you now: I love you both more than you even know. I know times have been hard lately with... Well, you know, but just remember that I love you no matter what happens, ever."

She kissed us on the cheek and hugged us both, then sighed and opened the front door.

"Well, let's clear out."

We all walked to the car.

"Do you want the front seat?" Daphne asked me. She'd gone particularly out of her way lately to be nice to me, and I appreciated that.

"Thanks," I muttered without much enthusiasm, and got in.

As my mother sent us off-for my first year and Daphne's third-on the Hogwarts Express, I realized how much I would miss her. I waved frantically out of the window, and she waved back tearfully.

After we left the station, I searched for an open seat on the train. I passed a few girls and boys who looked like they were the same year as I was, and a compartment with a full-grown tattery-looking man asleep on one side of the seat and two boys and one girl on the other side, talking. I thought one of the boys looked something like Harry Potter, but I wasn't sure it was him. I ended up finding an open compartment. Inside was a skinny blonde boy, two very large boys, and a girl with very frizzy brown hair. I knocked almost silently, slid open the door slowly, and asked in a halfway confident voice if I could sit. I told them this was the first open compartment I'd come to on the train. The large boys and the girl all looked at the blonde boy. Slowly he nodded. I walked in and sat across from the skinny boy. No one said anything for a while. I could feel their eyes on me, and finally the boy asked, "So, who are you?"

"Astoria Greengrass," I replied, nodding slightly once.

"Malfoy. Draco Malfoy," he reached out his hand, and I shook it. I knew the Malfoy family. They were all very wealthy.

He continued, "This is Pansy Parkinson, and this is Crabbe and Goyle. We're all third-years," he pointed to the skinny girl, then the large boys. The boys both nodded at me, but the girl just looked at me, her stare cold and calculating.

"I suppose both of your parents are of magical blood, then?" Draco asked. I knew this was a very important question to answer. The Malfoys were very prejudiced against half-blood and muggle-born wizards and witches. It was rumored that his father was a Death Eater when Voldemort was still in power.

"Yes, both of them."

"I see. And where do they work?"

"My mother was a columnist for the Wizarding Weekly magazine before she retired last year," I told him. He nodded, his expression looking as though I had become acceptable in his eyes. A feeling of slight satisfaction came over me until I saw the look on Pansy Parkinson's face. She was rolling her eyes dramatically, and she sighed and crossed her arms.

"What about your father, is he employed?"

I waited a second before I answered, weighing the results of lying against telling the truth. I finally decided the truth was the right way to go; it would save me a lot of trouble later.

"My father actually died before I was born."

"Oh, well I'm sorry to hear that," Draco didn't sound very sorry at all. I was starting to have my doubts about this group of third-years.

"Well, maybe you can be a part of our little gang this year."

"Your gang?" I longed now so much to have friends at Hogwarts, and this offer seemed particularly appealing.

"Yeah, it's me, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, Blaise, and Connor. We mainly just like to mess with Potter," he looked around at Crabbe and Goyle and they chuckled.

I merely smiled slightly and nodded, for I did not know what to think of this. Messing with Potter? Did he mean Harry Potter? I couldn't see what was so wrong with Harry Potter from what I'd heard about him. He'd defeated the worst dark wizard of all time, he had to be at least okay, right?

Just as I was thinking this, two boys whom I guessed were Connor and Blaise walked in and closed the compartment door. The problem with this was that there was only one empty seat left in the compartment.

"Blaise, Connor! Good to see you," Draco said to the boys.

I stood up.

"I should probably be going, theres not enough room," I muttered embarrassedly, gathering my things.

"Find me later, and we'll talk about the possibility of putting you in the gang, alright?" Draco said.

"Alright," I replied, and walked out of the compartment with my large trunk, shutting the door behind me.

Something about Draco's quick-to-the-point attitude intrigued me. I hadn't even been here for a day, and already I was being invited into a gang. Due to the number of gang members, I felt as if it didn't happen every day, and it made me feel better to have at least something like friends here. I started to walk down the aisle until I found an empty spot in a compartment occupied by Daphne and identical twin girls. I knocked quietly, and then opened the door.

"I can't find an empty place to sit. Do you mind if I sit here?" I asked. The twins and Daphne nodded, so I slipped inside and placed my trunk on the shelves above our heads, and Daphne told the girls that I was the sister she telling them about. As soon as I sat down, the train put on its breaks, and it was all I could do not to fly forward onto one of the twins. The sky outside our window suddenly turned a greyish color, the lights flickered and went off, and I suddenly became very cold. I crossed my arms over myself and looked up at Daphne.

"Is it me, or did it just get really cold in here?" one of the twins asked.

The rest of us nodded. Suddenly I saw a black looming figure float ominously in front of our compartment's glass door. It moved it's fingers, and the door slowly opened. I became colder than I'd been in years. The black figure came very close to me, even though I backed away. Then it did something, and suddenly I felt just as I did laying on the street with April: completely miserable and heartbroken. I even heard her scream almost as clearly as I did that day. Then suddenly my vision was consumed with black, and I passed out.

"Did the Dementor...?"

"Yes. I knew it would have though. Her best friend died about a month ago... Why are they here anyway?"

"To look for Sirius Black."

"Did they find him?"

"No, he's not on the train. You don't have anything to worry about."

I blinked open my eyes to find the twins on one side of me and Daphne and that raggedy-looking man who was asleep in the other compartment earlier on the other side.

"Ah, she's awake. Let's sit her up, shall we?"

I tried to sit up, and they helped me get into the seat.

"What happened to me?"

"Well, the Dementor-"

"What's that?"

"They were made to be guardians of Azkaban. But about what happened to you, as I told another student earlier, if you get too near a Dementor, every good feeling and every happy memory will be sucked out of you. That's what it did to you."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bar of chocolate.

"Here, eat this, it will actually make you feel better. I have to leave, but we'll see each other around," he smiled at me, then got up and exited the room.

"What does he mean, 'we'll see each other around'?" I asked.

Daphne replied, "He's our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year."

"Oh."

Daphne and the twins made small talk most of the day until one of them spoke to me.

"I'm Flora, by the way," she said and shook my hand.

"Astoria Greengrass, but you can call me Tori," I replied.

"This is my sister, Hestia," Flora motioned to her twin. We shook hands, and all was silent in the compartment again.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Tori, about your friend," Flora said, and I could tell she meant it. I simply nodded, afraid that if I spoke, I would break down.

"I'm a first year too. I hope we all three get sorted into the same house," Flora said, and Hestia nodded. I noticed that Hestia didn't speak much, and Flora seemed overly talkative compared to her sister.

"Hey, you three might want to see this," Daphne called us over to the window, and we all gasped. There before us was the Hogwarts castle, lights glowing inside, becoming more and more visible in the sunset. It was beautiful. As the train pulled into the station, I stood and grabbed my trunk from the shelf.

"Well," Daphne said, "Welcome to Hogwarts!"

Flora, Hestia, and I grinned from ear to ear and stepped out of the compartment. As we did, I felt a little empty ache inside, and I knew why. It was because April could have been beside me as I entered the castle. And she wasn't.

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