Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling, nor will I ever be. Therefore, I do not own Harry Potter or it's characters... Just wanted to make that clear... haha

This story is rated T for foul language

Chapter 14

Ari's POV

"What do you mean we'll have to move?"

Freddie breathes a sigh and looks at Eli. "Caledon has seen the inside of your flat, which means he can apparate here at any time. That puts you and your family in danger and the only way to get out of danger is to move."

I shake my head. "They can't move! They've been here for eighteen years!"

Eli nods in agreement. "She's right. My mom will never go for it."

Brittney's door opens as she walks out yawning. "Morning…"

I snap my fingers and grin. "I've got it! You three can go stay with Aunt Laura while Freddie and I go back to Hogwarts!"

Brittney frowns. "Why are we staying with Aunt Laura?"

"Because now Caledon knows where you live so staying here would be really dangerous. You have to leave… I can't have anything happening to you lot when we end up fighting Caledon."

She scoffs and Eli shakes his head. "We 'lot' aren't going anywhere! We're going with you and we're going to fight with you!"

I laugh at Brittney and shake my head. "The hell you are! You LOT are going to stay with Aunt Laura and that's final!"

Eli gets up from the couch and sighs. "Let me go call mom and finalize everything…" He grabs Brittney's arm and drags her to his room, shutting the door behind them. Freddie and I sit on the couch in silence, each lost in our own thoughts, as we wait for Eli and Brittney to come back out. After a few moments, they exit Eli's room and sit on the couch with us. Eli looks at me with a smirk and says, "Well, it's final. Mom is going to stay with Aunt Laura and Brittney and I are coming to Hogwarts with you."

I look at him with wide eyes and my mouth agape. "Are you… Are you bloody kidding me?"

He shakes his head firmly. "No Ariana, I'm not 'bloody' kidding you. I can't believe you would even suggest that we go into hiding while you go out and save the American wizarding world! We as a family lost you once already and we don't plan on doing it again, so as Bri said before, WE ARE GOING WITH YOU."

Freddie looks at me and sighs. "We could use all the help we can get, you know…"

I groan and throw up my hands in defeat. "Fine! If you're going to come with, you better go pack fast because we leave in an hour."

They smile at Freddie and run to their rooms. Freddie and I place a few protective charms around the apartment so that it can remain safe until mom gets back and then go pack up our own stuff.

Once we've all packed, Freddie and I apparate us all to the cemetery connected to the prefect bathroom. We sneak from the cemetery, through the tunnel and out of the prefect's bathroom. Once we get inside the school, it takes everything Freddie and I have to keep Brittney's and Eli's gasps of wonder and delight at bay. We get close to Gryffindor tower when we run into Monroe. "Found some more followers have you?" She then looks at Eli and Brittney with a sneer and says "Be careful with this one or you'll end up dead by the end of the term."

I roll my eyes and smirk at her. "What are you doing here Monroe? Is your own family so sick of you that even THEY don't want you back for winter holiday?"

She grimaces at me. "I decided on my own accord to spend holiday here!"

I nod and smirk again. "To get more snogging time in with Rylan, no doubt."

She glares at me and balls her hands into fists then relaxes. She looks at Eli and grins maliciously. "ANOTHER boy huh? No worries. It will be no problem for me to steal this one from you too."

I narrow my eyes at her and raise my wand up, waving it at her grinning face. Her eyes widen into shock as she realizes what I've just done to her. She tries to say something but all that comes out of her mouth are grunts and groans. I push past Monroe and continue down the corridor, everyone else following behind me. Freddie catches up to me and gives me a stern look. "Really? Did you really langlock her?"

I shrug my shoulders and smirk at him. "It MAY be one of the many nonverbal spells I know…"

Eli chimes in from behind us. "I think she should have done so much more!"

Freddie turns back to him and sighs. "She has. That was one of the nicer things Ariana has done to her… Although I'm not saying she hasn't deserved everything Ari's ever done to her."

We get to Gryffindor tower and stop outside the portrait. Freddie quickly says the password and leads us into the common room. I look at one of the red couches in front of the fire and smile as I remember back to two years ago when Carter spent his winter holiday sleeping on that couch.

I snap out of my stupor and gesture for everyone to follow me as I lead them into the Heads common room. I am about to lead them to my room when I hear talking coming from James' room. I gesture again for them to follow me and sneak over to his room. I lean my shoulder against his door frame and listen to James' and Al's conversation.

"I just don't want to lose my brother…"

I grin and say "Aw! That was so sweet!"

Both James' and Al's heads whirl around and face us. I give them a smirk and say, "Miss me?"

Al jumps up from the floor and rushes at me, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me into a hug. "Of course! How was America?"

James sees our bags and pulls Al back. "Maybe we should let them all unpack and then she can tell us about the trip."

I nod my thanks to James and look at Al with a smile. "How about I tell you WHILE I unpack?"

He grins at me and nods. "Perfect."

I turn around and see Eli and Brittney, reminding me that Al hasn't met them yet. "Oh! Al! This is Eli and his sister Brittney. They are my 'family' from America. They're going to be staying here with us for a bit."

Brittney grabs my arm and whispers "Are all English boys cute, or just the ones you know?"

My mind flashes to Castor and I grimace. "Believe me, I don't only know cute guys…"

James grabs my bag and walks out of his room, shooting me a questioning look as he does. Before I can question the look Al grabs my arm with a grin. "Tell me about the trip."

We walk into my room and I begin unpacking my bag. "Well, we started off the trip by setting a forest in Colorado on fire and-"

Freddie holds up his hands with a smirk. "Whoa whoa whoa. WHO set the forest on fire?"

"Ugh… Okay! I set the forest on fire… ANYWAYS! After we set the forest on fire, we apparated to New York and met up with these two here and we spent the remainder of the trip with them. We didn't complete what McGonagall asked of us, but that's because Caledon has the President under the Imperius curse. Oh and now he knows where these two live, which is why-"

"Al? Are you in here?"

I poke my head out from my room and look into the common room. "Landen?"

He looks at me and squints his eyes. "Ariana?"

I jump up off the floor and run out of my room. "Landen!" I rush at him and wrap my arms around his neck with a grin. "I missed you!"

He winces at the contact a bit but returns my hug. "I missed you too. I'm glad you're alright! How was the trip?"

"It was… interesting. Come on, I was just telling Al about it and I have some people for you to meet." I grab his arm and pull him into my room. As soon as I do, I hear Al take in a sharp breath and say "What the hell?"

James grimaces and says, "What happened to you?"

I shake my head. "Nothing… What are you tal-"

James cuts me off by shaking his head. "Not you… Landen."

I turn to see what they're talking about and gasp when I see it. I don't know how I didn't notice it in the common room… Landen has a multitude of small cuts on his face that are still slightly oozing blood along with a big purple welt on his cheek. He has a cut on his neck and his shirt has a big rip across the chest. I walk over to my dresser and grab him a new shirt, tossing it to him quietly. He walks to my bathroom and is about to shut the door when I clear my throat. "Nope. Change your shirt out here."

I know Landen pretty well, and he's not exactly shy about changing in front of people so I'm not sure why he is going to go change his shirt in the bathroom…

He gives me a pleading look. "Why Ari?"

I cross my arms and look at him firmly. "Because I know you're hiding something and I have a hunch that it has to do with all those cuts."

He sighs and pulls his shirt off slowly with a grimace, revealing multiple bruises along his torso and a large cut across his chest. I clench my teeth and step forward. "Who the hell did this?"

He looks around at everyone nervously so I walk forward and gently grab his face, forcing him to look at me. "WHO. DID. THIS?"

Al chimes in. "He was in detention with Andromeda before this…"

I drop my hands from his face with wide eyes as I remember what Caledon said in my dream. "Speaking of love, how's your little boyfriend? He did such a great job pretending to be one of us… He even had ME fooled. My oh my do I have plans for him the next time I see him… Until then, Andromeda will have to take care of him."

I clench my teeth again and narrow my eyes. "That bitch is dead… I'll bloody kill her!"

I grab my wand and storm out of the room, with Al, James, and Freddie jumping up in protest. They unanimously shout "NO! Bad idea!" as I leave the room.

I get as far as the Heads common room before someone yanks my wand from my hand. "Ariana, no."

I twirl around angrily and throw my hands up angrily. "Why the hell not Landen? What could you possibly say that could convince me otherwise?"

He laughs angrily. "Nothing! It won't matter what I say because you're going to want to kill her anyways! You're so bloody stubborn!"

I raise an eyebrow at him. "Is that so?"

"Yes! You should have let me come with you!"

I laugh sarcastically. "No! Nobody else needed to die or get hurt for me!"

"NOBODY DIED ON THE TRIP!" He is towering over me now, which causes me to back up against the table behind me.

I clench my fists and glare up at him. "We didn't know that for a fact! We didn't know nothing was going to happen! And if something had happened, I couldn't let anyone sacrifice themselves for me!"

He scoffs at me. "IT'S NOT YOUR BLOODY CHOICE!"

"If they are dying for me then-"

Landen scoffs again. "Who said they are dying for you? Don't be so selfish! Maybe they are dying while fighting for something they believe in!"

I widen my eyes and laugh. "Selfish? SELFISH? If not wanting to lose anyone else is selfish, then fine! I'm selfish!"

He nods. "Good! Now that we agree…" He lifts me up onto the table behind me and grabs my face with one hand while wrapping his other arm around my waist and pulling me into a hungry kiss. I forget my anger toward him as soon as he kisses me and wrap my arms around his neck, though the kiss doesn't last long.

Eli clears his throat awkwardly, reminding us that he and the others are still there in my room. Landen pulls away and smirks. "I really did miss you. Now how about we go talk about your trip."

I poke him on the nose and frown. "You're an asshole… you know that? But a very persuasive asshole… Let's go."

I grab my wand back from him, hop off the table and walk into my room, ignoring the stupid grins on everyone's faces. I point to Landen and look at Brittney and Eli. "This asshole is Landen."

Eli smirks at me and says, "Really? Asshole, huh? Do you kiss ALL the assholes here, or just this one?"

Landen lets out a laugh. "Who is this guy? I think we're going to be good friends…"

I roll my eyes at Landen and point to Eli. "THAT asshole is my 'big brother' Eli. And that is his sister, and one of my best mates, Brittney. They're going to be hiding here for a bit."

Al realizes what I was saying before and nods while saying "Oh! So they're hiding here because Caledon knows where they live?" I look at him and nod. He gets a confused look on his face. "Wait, how does he know where they live?"

I sigh and sit down on my bed. "I had a dream, of sorts…"

Landen looks at me worriedly. "Of sorts?"

"Well it seemed like a dream at first but by the end of it I'm not so sure it was. I will tell you about it later." I look at James, Freddie and Al with a grin. "We still have a week left of holiday. How about we visit the Burrow?"

They all grin back at me and nod. Al looks to Eli, Brittney and Landen with a smirk. "I think that's a brilliant idea. We can introduce our new friends to the family and we will be back in time for the Christmas party!"

James claps his hands cheerfully. "Alright! Then it's settled! Everyone go pack! We'll meet back here and leave in two hours."

(Break)

The two hours passed fairly quickly. Before I knew it we were meeting up in my room and getting ready to leave. James and I take a quick head count to make sure we have everyone and then make our way back to the cemetery. We run into Monroe again but this time she runs away crying when she sees James. I look over at him with a smirk. "Rough break-up, huh?"

He returns my smirk and nods. "Rough is an understatement. She tried to kill me!"

"She couldn't have really tried to kill you! She's rather weak…"

He laughs loudly. "Hence why I said she 'tried'. I was really more like she was hugging my throat with her hands."

I let out a laugh then clasp my hands over my mouth. "She tried to choke you to death? Merlin, I wish I could have seen it!"

He shakes his head with a smile. "I almost felt bad breaking up with her. Almost…"

"Don't even worry about it. She has that loony prat Rylan to keep her company." We get to the prefect bathroom and James says the password. We get into the bathroom, go through the tunnel and get into the cemetery. Every time I enter the cemetery I get an uneasy feeling. I grab James' arm and look around warily. "Hey Jamie, why do you think McGonagall has left this open?"

He looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "You called me Jamie…"

I roll my eyes at him. "Is that really the thing to be focusing on right now?"

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Sorry, you're right. You just haven't called me that in a really long time… Anyways, I'm not really sure why she's kept this open. It doesn't seem too safe, does it?"

I shake my head. "No, not really. It's a direct path into Hogwarts and it's fairly secret. I mean, we've snuck out of the school from here at least twice now."

Eli clears his throat loudly. "If you two are finished, the rest of us are standing back here awkwardly. Can we go now?"

I look back at him and roll my eyes. "Sorry. Let's get going." Brittney grabs onto Freddie's arm, Landen and Eli grab on to mine, and Al grabs onto James' arm. James, Freddie and I all nod to each other and I say "We're going to the field outside the shed." With that being said, we apparate to the Burrow.

We land with a soft crunch on the long grass outside the Burrow. I am taken aback by what I see playing out in front of us.

Out in front of the Burrow, a large fight is ensuing, with rogue spells flying around wildly, between the adults and an onslaught of Death Eaters. I look over to James and Freddie with wide eyes as we all pull out our wands and run toward the fight. I look over at James and say, "Jamie, we have to find Lily…"

Al looks at me and shakes his head. "You go help, I'll find my sister."

He breaks away from us and run toward the house. I look at Eli and he understands immediately. He runs after Al, leaving the rest of us to go help the adults.

Freddie and breaks off to go help his dad while Landen leaves to go help his dad. I look over to Brittney and point to the small fires that have broken out along the house. "Bri, can you go take care of those fires before they reach the house?"

She nods and takes off toward the fires. I see Ginny pinned against a wall with two Death Eaters firing spells at her. I wave my wand and hit one of them with a stupefy spell while James hits the other with another spell. They both fall to the ground limply. Ginny sees us and smiles. "Impeccable timing you two."

James smirks at me as he hits another Death Eater with a spell. "It's good to be home."

I nod to him with a grin and shoot an Immobulus spell at a Death Eater as I say, "Just try not to get knocked out this time."

He shoots a spell at the frozen Death Eater then rolls his eyes and flips me off with a laugh. "You just worry about yourself. Duck!"

I duck down and James shoots a Death Eater who was standing behind me. He extends a hand down to me and helps me up off the ground with a smirk. I roll my eyes and point past him. "Don't look so proud of yourself and go help Ron."

He nods and runs in the direction of Ron, who is fighting with three different Death Eaters. I see Freddie and George being attacked by four Death Eaters. One of them sees me coming to help them and shoots a spell at me. The spell skims my left arm, rendering it temporarily useless. I wave my wand and hit him in the chest with stupefy spell and then turn my attention to the Death Eater standing next to him. I barely dodge the spell he shoots at me as I run closer to them. I wave my wand at him and shoot a spell, but he avoids it. Since all of his attention is turned toward me, Freddie takes the opportunity to hit him with a spell that shoots him into the trunk of a tree. George takes out the remaining two Death Eaters with a laugh then gives me a nod before he and Freddie run off to help Roxanne and Angelina.

I look to my left and see Al protectively hovering over Lily while hiding behind a shielding spell as two Death Eaters continually fire spells at him.

My left arm is regaining feeling so I use it to propel myself toward Al faster. Apparently James saw Al too and had the same idea as me because he gets to Al at the same time I do. One of the Death Eaters shoots a spell at me but I spin away from it. Although I did dodge the spell, the Death Eater swings at me, connecting his fist with my face. I fall to the ground and a huff of air escapes my lips as the wind is knocked from my lungs. James hits the two Death Eaters with a body-locking spell and then looks at me with a smirk.

I roll my eyes and sit up. "Are you following me?"

He laughs as he grabs my arm and helps me up off the ground. "Fat chance! I got here first!" He touches my lip and frowns. "He really got you good, didn't he? Are you alright?"

I smirk at him as I touch a cut on his cheek. "Yea I'm fine. You're not looking to hot yourself. When did you get this?"

He furrows his brow and laughs. "I'm not too sure actually…"

James helps Al up and I let Lily jump onto my back. The four of us head out from the side of the house to check on everyone else. I look at Al and frown. "Where's Eli?"

Al rubs at a cut on his arm and shrugs. "I'm not sure. I sent him to go off to go help Landen once I found Lily."

We get to the front of the house and I hear Landen calling for me. I scan the landscape in front of me until I see Landen. He is kneeling next to someone and motioning for me to go over there. "Hey Lily, can you stay here with James really quick?"

She nods and hops off my back. I run toward Landen and once I get close enough to realize who it is that's on the ground, I break into a sprint. I drop down next to the body and grab his hand. "Eli?"

Uh-oh! What happened to Eli? Is he going to be alright? I guess you'll have to wait to find out! :P

Let me know what you thought about the chapter!

Thanks!

-Tx