Hello, everyone. Welcome back to my story, a little update on the beta reader thing. I've decided that when I've finished my next chapters, I'll upload them and when the Beta reader finishes going over them I'll just update the chapter. It'll probably be easier on them since they're so busy. This way they don't have to worry about rushing to edit my stories, (Despite me telling them many times it's fine.)

There are sections from this chapter that you will recognize as from the original book. There were a lot of things going on at the time of writing this so I might have skipped a few corners. I also didn't want to change that much of the train ride, not to mention I wanted to use the right descriptions of Ron and Hermione from the book.

Now onto the reviews.

Hikari Nova chapter 9 . Jul 8

The only thing that would make things worst for the dull Dursleys is people finding newspaper articles about Lily and James's deaths referring to them as Lady and lord potter as I'm sure some of the older 'noble' houses actually got mundane titles from before the magical's went into hiding and I think the potter family using the potter name is from between the 11th {1,000AD} and 13th {1,200AD} centuries and if I remember HP canon the Potter family was known for being craftsmen, potioneers and businessmen so I can see the potter family having been landed nobles and keeping up their mundane side of things unlike the other 'English magical nobility' A.K.A 'purebloods' who think that the mundanes are filthy barbarian cavemen who can't do anything unless a magical is telling them how to do it and that the 'magical world' is the 'pinnacle of civilization'

Me: Now that's an idea. Even if they don't have a title in the muggle world, it wouldn't be too hard to fake a newspaper from around the time Lily died showing that the Lord and Lady Potter were killed leaving their Daughter Crystal Potter orphaned.

That was the only review that wasn't just telling me the chapter was good. Thank you for those two by the way.

I'm curious about something, have any of you actually processed that James Potter is alive in this fanfiction and just abandoned his daughter, or did everyone skim past that?

Anyways, onto the story.

Crystal couldn't believe the changes in her Aunt and Uncle. It has been a few weeks since she had confronted them with the Goblin's help. There have been a few bumps along the way but she had been expecting it.

One such bump happened right after the Goblins appeared to have left. Her Uncle didn't wait another second before lunging at her to try and strangle her, unluckily for him, her Goblin friends hadn't really left. They canceled their disillusionment charms, this made Vernon freeze and pale.

Grinlast said that anytime he went to attack Crystal there would be an extra one thousand pounds added to their debt.

After that day Crystal was moved into Dudley's second bedroom, and she was fed the amount of food a growing child needs. Sure, her Aunt and Uncle glared at her, and she was almost certain that her Uncle was planning something to get ahold of her money, but things were better.

Crystal had even gone out and bought a bunch of normal clothes. Sure she had a few thanks to Sam but she has always wanted to be able to buy her own clothes. She bought several dresses, shirts, pants, skirts, shorts, socks, underwear, a few bras, and some shoes.

Now it was time for her to head off to Hogwarts and she was excited. She had read every book she could get her hands on. She sent owl orders with her new owl Hedwig to the bookstore to buy more books.

Speaking of animals she was currently sitting in the last compartment on the train, she got there early before anyone else was there thanks to the Goblins telling her where the platform was. Her cat was sitting on her lap and she gently ran her hand through his fur. She had named him Spooky, unoriginal she knew, but she couldn't think of a better name for a black cat that belonged to a half-ghost than that. She had sent Hedwig on ahead to school, she didn't want to keep the poor Owl in a small cage for the entire train ride.

Crystal was currently reading a book on ancient runes that could be used to power spells and wards. She wouldn't be able to take the class until her third year but that didn't mean she couldn't study the subject in her spare time. She was wondering if she would be able to find a way to make magic work with electricity. If she could manage that she was going to try and make some gear to fight both ghosts and humans for when she went out crime fighting.

Too soon for her liking the train started filling up and left the station. Half an hour after that someone opened the door to her compartment.

He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose. He had bright red hair and blue eyes. His clothes looked old and his robe was a bit too small for him, not reaching his feet and therefore showing off his tattered shoes.

He took one look at her and the scar on her forehead and smiled, "Mind if I sit here? Every other compartment is full." He didn't even wait for an answer before barging in and sitting on the bench across from her.

Crystal tried not to let that get to her, she knew that most little boys, including her cousin, could be rude. "I guess not since you've already invited yourself in." She couldn't help but mumble under her breath, feeling embarrassed when the boy's face and ears turned red to match his hair.

"Well I'm Ron, Ron Weasley what's your name?" Crystal couldn't believe it. This was one of the people who were stealing from her, hell, this was the boy that she used to have that illegal marriage contract with. She was so thankful she had found out about this before today, who knows if she would have become friends with the thief?

Still, it wouldn't do to be rude. "I'm Crystal Potter, pleasure to meet you."

She had to grit her teeth when the boy gasped. "Do you really have the scar?"

She couldn't believe this boy, how rude can you get? Still, she pushed her bangs up slightly knowing that these kinds of boys wouldn't stop pushing and she did not want to have to deal with that the entire ride.

"So that's where You-Know-Who -?"

"Yes," Crystal said through gritted teeth, "but I can't remember it."

"Nothing?" said Ron eagerly.

Okay, enough was enough. She slammed her book closed and leveled a glare at the rude boy. "Are you seriously acting eager to hear if I remember the night my parents were murdered? How dare you!"

Ron paled as if just now realizing what he was doing and mumbled a soft apology. Crystal took a deep breath to calm down, she couldn't afford to lose her cool so soon. She just went back to her book trying to ignore him but instead after a few minutes, he started talking again.

"I heard you went to live with Muggles," said Ron. "What are they like?"

Crystal glanced up at them with a raised eyebrow, "Fine I suppose, my cousin and I are pretty close. Why?"

Ron shrugged, "Just curious, my entire family is magical."

She raised an eyebrow, she supposed small talk couldn't hurt. "You're entire family?"

He got uncomfortable and shifted before speaking, "Er – yes, I think so," said Ron. "I think Mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."

"Why not? Did he do something bad?"

Ron shook his head, "No, he just hasn't got any magic you see? He's a squib!" He said, expecting Crystal to know what that meant to the magical world.

She really didn't, so she asked confused. "An explosive?"

Now it was Ron's turn to look confused, "A what?"

"In the non-magical world, Squib is an explosive bomb, what's the word mean here?"

Ron looked surprised, "Huh, I'll have to let my dad know about that. Anyways a Squib here is someone without magic."

"So why don't you talk about the accountant? Is it because he has no magic?" Crystal asked, shocked that the magical world would do that but she didn't know why. It was the exact same thing the Dursleys did to her after all.

Ron looked baffled and then thoughtful before shrugging, "I don't know."

Crystal decided to research this later and when she was about to go back to her book he spoke up again, he sounded a bit gloomy.

"I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left – Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep.

"His name's Scabbers and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff – I mean, I got Scabbers instead."

Ron's ears went pink and he turned to stare out the window while Crystal stared at him incredulously. Did this boy really just spill all of that to a total stranger? Then she realized something.

He said all of that to get her sympathy, he was trying to make her pity him so she would become his friend. She wouldn't be the boy's friend, but until he was rude to her she wouldn't be rude to him. Even if he was stealing from her.

Instead of jumping to comfort him like she was betting he wanted she just looked at the rat and said, "That's nice." before she returned to her book, leaving Ron sitting there in surprised silence at the fact that the Headmasters plan wasn't turning out the way he said it would.

Around half past twelve, there was a great chattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"

Ron's ears went pink again and he muttered that he'd brought sandwiches while Crystal looked up. She got up from her seat and glanced over the sweets on the cart trying to find some Mars bars or even a simple Hershey's bar but saw they didn't have any.

What the sweet cart did have were bertie bott's every flavor beans, Droobles best blowing come, chocolate frogs, pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, licorice wands, and a number of other strange things that Crystal was sure she had never seen before, even in the ghost zone.

Crystal stared at the strange sweets before buying three backs of Droobles, five chocolate frogs, two licorice wands, and something called Butterbear.

She put most of the sweets away in her trunk, only keeping out one of the licorice wands and the butterbeer. She noticed that Ron was staring at her in envy and jealousy. It was as if he believed that Cyrstal would spend a lot of her money on sweets for both of them.

Crystal ignored him and chewed on her licorice wand and sipped her drink as she started reading a new book. She had been expecting the licorice wand to taste like normal licorice from the muggle world and she was right.

The Butterbear however was a nice treat. It tasted of caramel with a hint of cinnamon and it went down smoothly. Crystal was pretty sure she had just found her new favorite drink.

Ten more minutes passed and now the countryside flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

Crystal spent some time watching as the world passed by before there was a knock on the compartment and a round-faced boy opened the door.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

Crystal shook her head while Ron ignored him.

"I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!" The round-faced boy wailed, looking tearfully around the compartment.

Crystal felt bad, "I'm sure he'll turn up. Maybe ask one of the older years to summon him for you?"

The round-faced boy perked up, "I can do that, thanks!" He then rushed off toward the back of the train.

Ron chose then to speak up, his voice sounding mean. "Don't know why the big lump is so bothered, if I had brought a toad I would have lost it as quick as I could." Here he paused before glaring down at the rat still snoozing on his lap.

"Then again, I brought this thing so I can't talk."

"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in disgust. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. 'I'll show you, look…"

He started rummaging around in his trunk, ignoring Crystal when she said that she didn't want to see it, and brought out his wand. It was an old battered-looking thing. It was chipped in places and had a piece of something white glittering at the tip.

Crystal was positive that the wand wasn't safe at all for use.

"Unicorn hair's nearly pointing out. Anyway –"

Crystal's eyes nearly popped out, did he just say that the core of his wand was nearly poking out? She nearly screeched at him to put that thing away before the door opened.

This time it was a girl, she was already wearing her brand-new Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

Ron groaned and turned to the girl, his wand still pointing at the rat while Crystal sat in the corner farthest away from it, eyeing it wearily.

"We already told him we didn't see it." Ron said, annoyance in his voice but the girl wasn't listening. Her eyes were on his wand.

"Oh, are you about to do some magic? Let's see it!" She sat down next to Ron who looked taken aback before he sat up straighter.

"Well. alright if you insist." he then pointed his wand back at the rat and focused as he said the incantation that Crystal was 99% sure was made up.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,

Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep. Crystal relaxed when the wand didn't explode like she was half expecting it to do.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard – I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough – I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

She said all this very fast.

Hermione Granger, another person who was stealing from her. Crystal was confused, why would this girl steal from her? Why was she getting paid from Crystal's own vaults, it didn't make any sense to her.

"Are you aware that using magic outside of school is against the law?" Crystal couldn't help but ask, she was wondering how this girl managed to practice magic outside of school without getting in trouble.

She was pleased to see that the girl looked nervous before standing up in a huff, "You never answered, who are you two?"

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron said.

Crystal held back a sigh as she spoke, "I'm Crystal Potter." She could barely finish before Hermione went on another rant.

"Are you really? I've read all about you of course-" Crystal quickly cut them off.

"Okay, firstly rude, secondly those books are nothing but lies. The only ones that know for sure what really happened that night are those that were there and out of all of them, I'm the only one alive."

Crystal continued, "My parents are dead, Voldemort is dead, I am the only one who survived that night and I have never given an interview in my life. I don't even remember what happened, I have no clue what spells were used that night."

Hermione stared at her, trying to talk but her voice wasn't working for her until she let out another huff and crossed her arms. "I should go help Neville find his toad-"

Crystal knew it was rude but she cut the girl off, "Actually I told him to ask an older classmate to summon the frog for him, a prefect most likely."

Hermione just glared at her before storming out, slamming the compartment door and making the wall shake.

"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk. "Stupid spell – George gave it to me, I bet he knew it was a dud."

Crystal raised an eyebrow, "George?"

Ron nodded, "He's one of my brothers, he and Fred are twins."

"What house are they in?" Crystal was curious, she hadn't seen any mention of these twins stealing from her. Now that she thought of it the only Weasleys that were taking her money were Ronald, his little Sister, and their mother.

This time it took half an hour before someone barged into the compartment again. The boy that opened the door was pale with blond hair, he was being followed by two larger boys. The two boys looked slow in the mental area but very mean.

Crystal knew better than to judge someone on their appearance though, case in point, her cousin. He used to be just like these boys but after he got some proper help in school and lost some weight he got so much better.

Maybe these two would be the same.

Standing on either side of the smaller blond boy they looked like bodyguards which confused her. Why would he need bodyguards that are the same age as him?

"Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that Crystal Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?" He was staring right at Crystal, no not at her, at her forehead. She found that very rude.

"Yes, it's me." She replied, trying not to show her disdain for him. She was still watching the two boys behind him curiously.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Crystal was looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Draco Malfoy looked at him.

"Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children they could afford."

He turned back to Crystal. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."

Crystal raised an eyebrow, "Thank you for the advice but at this moment in time I do not wish to be friends with you. You remind me of the bully my cousin used to be like before he changed."

Here she softened her face and voice, "But I believe you're acting like this to try and impress me, if you are serious about being friends then maybe once you've stopped picking on others to impress people we can be friends. If you need help don't hesitate to ask me."

Draco Malfoy didn't go red, but a pink tinge appeared on his cheeks.

He didn't say another word before leaving, it looked like he was embarrassed.

Soon enough Crystal kicked Ron out so she could change, she made sure to lock the door and close the blinds before changing. After that, she left so he could change.

Crystal glanced out the window and saw that they were pulling up to a dark station, it didn't have many lights on. Crystal could see some carriages being pulled by what looked like winged skeleton horses with tight black leathery skin pulled over their bones.

She could just about make out the outline of a castle in the dark in the distance. She steeled herself as she stepped off of the train and prepared herself for a new adventure.