Some (long) time ago Plot Bunny came to me with an idea: What if someone wanted to avenge Cedric Diggory? And what if, since this would be a teenager trying to kill one of Voldemort's best hidden servants, the task would be way over his/her head? Teenagers don't mix well with Mr. Consequence of Your Actions, after all.

I let Plot Bunny plot on the side. He wanted Cho Chang for the main role, but things weren't panning out between them. Plot Bunny would say "You'll sink into anger, and darkness"

And Cho Chang would answer "But I want to snog Harry Potter!"

So it didn't quite work. So Plot Bunny came to me, again, with an idea to solve his issues with Cho: What if Cedric had a sister? Old enough to know enough magic to do the thing, young enough to not realize the enormity and the risks involved in doing the thing.

And so, unconstrained with Cho's desire to move on from Cedric, Plot Bunny renewed his plotting. He made Cedric' sister into one of Cho's giggling friends, as if to make amends with Cho (and because he was already thinking in Cho-centric terms).

By the start of this year, Plot Bunny had so much plot I was able to write a full outline of the story, starting from The Sister's birth to, well, the end. But starting with her birth, while interesting insofar as exploring how a sheltered middle class pureblood childhood was, created many pages of slices of life. Stuff happened, yes. Characters grew, yes. But things were of little consequence.

Starting right after Cedric's death came with its own set of problems. There is no emotional impact of Arabella (had to give Little Sister a name) watching her brother arrive dead from the labyrinth. Her skill set and her relations, which are necessarily different from your average sixth year Hogwarts student, would seem to match some conflicts just too well. And many would appear already mastered, or close to it.

The events of Prisoner of Azkaban appear as a good starting point to tell the story: she's old enough that the magic and relationships she'll start to develop are advanced enough to be useful later on. You get to see her making an effort in discovering, learning and honing skills. There is time to build on her relationship with her soon to be killed brother. There is a lead up to events that will shape up how hard she'll be hit by his death. And the eventful trip to Hogwarts packs enough action and stakes so a recap on her ambitions, skills and friends so far can be weaved into it.

One last thing before we start: I may have thrown too many characters for a first chapter, and not all of them are important. So I'll add a Dramatis Personae by the end of the chapter listing some of the relevant(ish) adults and the named students currently in fifth and fourth year (As a reference, this is the start of Harry Potter's third year) as well as their relevance. So don't worry about getting lost among too many names.

And now, without further ado,

An Eventful Train Ride

Both Cormac and her were going through the tunnel beneath the Forbidden Forest, only that instead, it now extended beneath the Irish Sea.

"Arabella, wake up, it's almost ten already!"

"Hmmpf"

Where was she? Yes, the tunnel. Railroads were now emerging, so the train could get to Ireland. That was stupid, though. The Knight Bus was faster. She started making the enchantment to link it with the Floo Network, although she didn't know which one, if any, it was. And the tunnel wasn't complete anyway.

"Wake up, we're going to be late!"

"Mmm"

So yes, the forest, only that she was now flying above it, along Cho and Marietta. Ugh, Eddie and Marcus have joined up. What were those two up to now? And what was she dreaming before?

"Arabella, it's a quarter to eleven, wake up!"

"WHAT?!" The fourteen years old witch intentionally rolled out of bed and stood up on her bare feet on the cold floor to stop her from falling asleep again. Cursing under her breath, she took on her surroundings. No hangover? check - not that butterbeer was that strong. Trunk ready from the previous day? check. Change of clothes ready at her wardrobe? check. Wand at her night table? check. She quickly changed her clothes, tossed her nightgown into the trunk, decided against wearing the robes, and quickly tossed on top of everything else into the trunk. Not willing to wait anymore, she took one final look at the village downhill, levitated the trunk and, yawning, raced downstairs and into the dining room, where her family was having breakfast beneath a clock that read half past ten.

She took a moment to get her bearings. At either side of the table, her parents were quietly finishing their breakfast - tea with toasts, nothing fancy - while Cedric looked at her with fake innocence, right beneath the clock. He was nearly a mirror image of herself, or so she always heard. As children, strangers would confuse them and talk about the 'Diggory Twins'. They weren't - Cedric was fifteen months older than her. As they grew older, Arabella's friends would point out how Cedric was like she'd look without breasts. And then they'd go on and add 'with broader shoulders, and with a square jaw' and on and on, and Arabella would shut them down by asking them if they wanted her to set them up with her brother - so far shyness triumphed and they'd shut up. But yes, strangers and friends alike had a point. Cedric had been growing broader and had light gray eyes instead of her own brown ones, and of course Arabella kept her dark hair long, but their resemblance was obvious. She was even nearly as tall as him, making her the tallest witch in her year, which sometimes had strangers believe her to be older than she was. But unlike her current disheveled look, Cedric was all prim and proper and with a brand new prefect badge in his uniform - a badge she wasn't in the running to ever get.

But musings aside, she had more pressing concerns "You told me I was about to miss the train!" she complained, pointing at the clock.

"Would you have woken up if I told you the hour for real?" laughed Cedric

She was thinking some sort of witty retort when her mother interrupted "At what time did you arrive last night?" she asked, without any hint of Cedric' smile, as Arabella half pouted and sat for breakfast.

"Half past eleven, I think" she lied as she spread butter on a toast "I wasn't going to miss Sarah's first public concert".

Cedric raised an eyebrow at that but didn't say anything. In reality, Sarah and her band had performed before in muggle venues, but this was the first time they've played in a fully wizard venue - The Three Broomsticks - and since Arabella doubted Mrs. Fawcett knew about her daughter's muggle escapades she thought that particular half-lie was unlikely to reach her parents. The time she had actually arrived home last night, that was another matter.

Sarah was the only daughter of one of the other three families that lived around Ottery St. Catchpole - the other two families being the Weasleys and the Lovegoods. The age of Cedric, Sarah was Arabella's first childhood female friend, and as children, the kids of all four families used to hang out and learn the basics together. But what Arabella used to call 'the Ottery St. Catchpole Gang' started to drift apart as they started school and everyone, Arabella included, started spending more time with their classmates. Even Cedric, Sarah and the Weasley Twins, all in the same year, typically hang out with people in their respective houses. So Arabella thought Sarah's band - she played the rainbow saxophone - show at Hogsmeade last night would be an opportunity to bring back the old Gang together. Only that as a new teenage band, the only date they were able to secure was the night before the Hogwarts Express departed. Cedric passed on the invitation to avoid sleeping late on his first day as prefect. The Weasleys were probably not allowed to go for the same reason and Luna's father thought her to be too young to go out at night. Fortunately for Arabella her best friends from school, Cho and Marietta, went with her and they ended up hanging out around Hogsmeade until… she didn't know for sure, but certainly well past midnight. Not that her parents needed to know, unless her father happened to talk about it with Marietta's mother at the ministry. They weren't in the same department and the ministry was a big place. 'Worse come the worse, I'll be at Hogwarts by then' thought Arabella as she bit her toast.

"You shouldn't have overslept" admonished her mother, Eleanor.

"The Sorting Hat didn't say I was too lazy for Hufflepuff for no reason, mum" she answered, trying to divert the conversation away from her particular last night schedule.

"Right, that's why you took three electives instead of just two" teased Cedric.

"Oh, because you're working hard at Muggle Studies, right? Do you need to misspell things to get a passing grade?" she teased back, and pretended to imitate the voice of the older professors "Oh, no, he wrote 'electricity' instead of 'eccleticy'. That's wrong! And he answered that muggle ships can sail without wind! You've failed your OWL Prefect Diggory!"

Cedric bursted out laughing "It's not that bad!"

"That bad" pointed out Arabella.

Their father, however, interrupted the fun "Muggle Studies is a sensible choice for opening doors at the Ministry after graduation" he interjected.

"I'm not going to work for the ministry, dad. I'm going to be a curse breaker!" she answered while dipping in her tea. It was cold, so she pulled her wand and casted a mild warming charm on it. "Too hot". She pulled her wand again and while everyone shouted at her to stop she casted "Glacius!" and her brother screamed in pain.

The entire table was frozen solid by her spell and Cedric, who apparently had a hand on the table when her spell hit, was grabbing that hand in pain, frozen burns over it.

Her mother scrambled to get her first aid kit - plants, but unlikely to have potions - while her father just grabbed his head "I take that you've never used that spell before?"

Arabella had to recognize she hadn't and mouthed a 'sorry' to her brother, across the now frozen table. Cedric mouthed a significant variety of foul words in return.

"Just finish your breakfast" ordered her father, who went to collect the trunks and started casting at the house's fence. Arabella's mother, in the meantime, was now applying some herbal paste on Cedric's hand - murtlap and dittany, according to what Arabella could see. Arabella would favor potions over raw ingredients, but obviously there was no time to brew any. Mrs. Diggory finished Cedric up with some sort of complex spell she didn't bother to say aloud, and also conjured a leather glove out of thin air, filled it with more murtlap essence and covered the hand of a rather pissed Cedric with it.

Curious about what her father was doing, Arabella casted a revealing charm to the house's boundaries while still going for one of the now icy toasts. "Hey dad" she started, as her father returned and grabbed her "why have you just dispelled the…"

Her body uncomfortably squeezed into nothingness and back to normal

"... anti-apparition ward" she finished, a frozen toast in her left hand, her wand in her right hand and her feet firmly planted in a London street just across the corner from King's Cross. A soft pop and her mother and brother appeared behind her.

"Wands out" whispered her father.

"What?" asked Arabella, looking at the muggles all around them, commuting to whatever thing they did for work. Mr. Diggory didn't answer - he was looking around as if expecting a threat - and pointed at his sleeve, where he kept his wand half hidden from view, but on hand for immediate use.

"Black. Sirius Black" explained her mother, pushing both siblings to walk at a brisk pace into the station.

"What about him?" asked Cedric

"He's probably sunbathing in Tahiti!" said Arabella

"You don't know that. For all you know, he wants a piece of action" Insisted Amos Diggory while continuing to scan the crowded station

"Then he'll be working as a hired wand in the Incan Independence War" she whispered, torn between having complained all her life about the Statute of Secrecy and now being asked by her parents to be willing to break it at a moment's notice for a threat that wouldn't come. Her mother, behind her, was nearly pushing Cedric and herself into the pillar. What did their parents know? Yes, she figured they were traumatized by the war, but no escapee from Azkaban would choose to remain in the country!

As her father walked inside the platform with a barely contained shield charm coming from the tip of his wand and then pulled his head back from inside the pillar, while in full view of all the hundreds or even thousands of muggles around to tell them it was safe to walk into the platform, Arabella simply pictured Sirius Black partying in the Polinesia or prowling the Andes.

Her ruminations ended on the now familiar sight of the Hogwarts Express scarlet engine - the train would do a U turn on exiting the station so the locomotive both greeted the students when they've walked into Platform 9 and then lead the train north from the front of the train rather than the back.

They were also jumped by Sarah Fawcett, who greeted both, embraced Cedric and wasted no time asking about the glove in his hand.

"Ask Ara" simply answered Cedric, prompting a quizzical glance from Sarah. Arabella was saved from answering as her parents herded the three of them into the train.

"They are worried about Sirius Black" explained Arabella.

Sarah, just like Arabella, dismissed the idea with a gesture and grabbed Cedric by the shoulder "I've missed you last night!" she said as they boarded the train.

Cedric's tone was uncomfortable "I didn't want to start the term half asleep" he justified himself

"Nonsense, your sister was there and here she is! I was thinking, maybe we have place for a chorus"

Behind them, Arabella drowned a yawn and was about to point out how asking any Diggory to sing was a really bad idea when she paid attention to the way Sarah was embracing her brother. Was she trying to flirt with him? She was willing to bet she was, but she split from the potential lovebirds at the sight of a red mane of curled hair and freckles in a nearby compartment she identified as her friend Marietta Edgecombe. Peeking inside, she saw the other two Hogsmeade girls in her year, Tabitha and Seraphina sitting next to Marietta and in front of them, her boyfriend Cormac McLaggen and his fellow Gryffindor Ritchie Cootie. She said goodbye to Sarah and her brother and walked into the compartment, sitting between Cormac and Ritchie and greeting the former with a quick peck in the lips.

"So, have you seen Cho?" Arabella asked Marietta.

"No, but she's probably ahead with the boys" came the redhead's answer

"Poor girl" joked Arabella.

Cormac shrugged "Pff, Cho would probably get conversation out of a gargoyle"

The rest of the compartment tensed a bit, as this was yet another instance of Cormac saying something inappropriate without even realizing it, but Arabella just laid on his shoulder "You have no idea" she said and that time, the train started its engine.

'The boys' were Eddie Carmichael and Marcus Belby, the other two Ravenclaw students who, along with Arabella, Marietta and Cho, completed their year's Ravenclaw's current crop. A muggleborn and a muggle-raised half blood respectively, they became fast friends since they met in first year. They could also be a pain in the arse when they thought they were being fun and in such occasions Arabella would rather handle them separately. Since Marcus was shy and fat while Eddie was tall - the only Ravenclaw taller than her - and outgoing, people would often mistake Eddie as the instigator of whatever mess the pair got themselves involved in, or eventually involved with someone else. But Arabella had long learned not to underestimate Marcus - they both instigated one another. To be fair to them, Eddie in particular had a bad time the last year with the heir of Slytherin petrifying muggleborns and so had Marcus who, as a muggle raised half-blood (or 'quarter-blood', not that Arabella cared) didn't really know where he fit in blood supremacists views. So yes, they had stopped intentionally giving the wrong answers to the Ravenclaw Common Room door. But maybe it wasn't because they had matured, or because Arabella had increased her jinx repertoire. Maybe it was because they were afraid.

As for Cho and gargoyles, Cormac really had no idea. Cho's parents were recent migrants to the British Islands, having left China in the 1970s and, after several years in the Ottoman Empire - Cho was born in Constantinople and had an older brother still living there - they set up shop in London in the mid nineteen eighties. Without contacts nor personal history in post-war Britain, the only place they were able to rent for their apothecary was in Knockturn Alley. Which meant they didn't get to make a cut selling restricted ingredients, as only well connected shops kept the ministry looking the other way, and that many of the customers were those shunned in Diagon Alley: hags, werewolves, the odd veela passing by, vampires and wizards of lesser repute. As a child Cho was not allowed into the Alley at all. But now that she knew the basics of defending herself, her parents thought it was a good idea to let her make deliveries and mix with the rest of Knockturn Alley's denizens. The logic was that, as one of their own, she'd be at less risk from them than if she was seen as a snotty outsider to Knockturn Alley.

A few weeks ago Arabella flooed over to the Chang's apothecary to visit Cho only to be invited to accompany her in a delivery - after covering her hands and hair, because it wouldn't do anyone in the Alley to help themselves to their hair or nails to use with polyjuice. So Cho and Arabella casually walked into the study of one of the Chang's better customers: a centuries old vampire who have been managing the night life clubs at Knockturn Alley since the 19th century in order to make a delivery of ingredients for blood replenishing potion (obviously), plus all the legal ingredients for polyjuice, the ingredients for the softer kind of love potions, the elixir of euphoria and variety of healing potions. It didn't take a genius to figure out which kind of clubs used the combination of polyjuice and not-quite-amortentia but both Cho and the vampire, called Janus Molloy, reassured her that the healing potions were for a gambling ring, unrelated to the other establishment. Which of course begged the question of which kind of gambling ring required reliable supplies of healing potions.

Gargoyles? Cho Chang could easily take you to a vampire's lair to talk business over tea.

As the train continued north, Marietta pulled the latest issue of Witch Weekly and Arabella switched places with Cormac to pick at the magazine. Cormac took the opportunity and grabbed a deck of Exploding Snap to play with Ritchie. Arabella glanced over the magazine looking for any update on professor Lockhart's condition - not so much for the author but to figure out what had exactly happened on the Chamber of Secrets last May, because the Weasleys weren't talking. Alas, the magazine said nothing about it and the girls got into a discussion about the current fashion. Predictably, the Hogsmeade girls preferred the thick Scottish robes to the capes that were in vogue in the Mediterranean.

Cormac and Ritchie alternated in losing at Exploding Snap and had their faces scorched with ash by noon. Arabella smiled from her spot by the window. Cormac and her have been dating since her fourteenth birthday, in January, when they were set up - or more precisely she was - by the majority of the girls in her year as they celebrated in an abandoned classroom. Since Arabella's class consisted of students born during the worst of the war, it was by far the smallest class in Hogwarts at just nineteen students. Unlike other years, which took their classes with just their houses, Arabella's class took them all together. And while they naturally spent more time with classmates of the same houses, they also mixed among houses a lot more than other years. Their birthdays were then typically celebrated by them all. For Arabella's fourteenth four of her classmates unsubtly remembering how she did say she thought Cormac was fit and that Cormac may think the same of her, and after a while and a bit of effort on their part to push them into action, the same friends ended up saying she got a boyfriend as a birthday gift.

The youngest of seven siblings, Cormac was born in a wealthy Irish pureblood family but, fortunately, didn't act posh at all - or whatever the Irish word was for that. He was, like Marietta, half orphan, having lost his mother because of the war while Marietta had lost her father in it. Their respective surviving parents have even dated each other at some point during the eighties, so both Cormac and Marietta knew each other from childhood.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a delightful ride as the Hogwarts Express travelled through the rain covered Highlands. Marietta worked on Arabella's hair, which was a mess due the haste in which she left in the morning. In turn, Arabella played and passed on the puzzle box she was gifted by her Head of House, professor Flitwick, the first time she sneaked out of Hogwarts with Cormac. They got caught because it turned out there were (obviously) more than just three enchantments in the Hogwarts boundaries and while Flitwich assigned them detention, he also gifted her the box to encourage her. It was a deceivingly complex toy that started with a simple jinx to be dispelled, but turned more and more complex as the player advanced: each dispelled jinx opened a new level which threaded together more and more charms of advanced difficulty. Arabella had reached level fourteen during the summer, and she stopped because she needed to check the Hogwarts library to advance further. Marietta would have easily reached at least level twenty in the same time, if she got her mind to it.

It was a bit ironic: Arabella wanted to be a curse-breaker and Marietta an unspeakable. But for someone who was supposed to be able to be an expert in hundreds of counter-curses for her desired career, Arabella took a long time to master spells and would often need to research the theory behind them as much as possible, while also getting sidetracked into other avenues of research. Marietta, who seemingly wanted to engage in magical research, typically progressed through practical classes with ease and without bothering much with researching the theory behind things, usually being first to master spells in class.

She was about to point that out when the train suddenly stopped long before reaching Hogsmeade Station, and its lights went off. The rain kept hitting the windows, but the sound seemed muffled.

"What's going on?" someone in her compartment asked. The temperature dropped, Arabella realized the train shouldn't naturally be that dark, even with the rain. Her puzzle box laid forgotten on the floor, and in the dark she suddenly felt as if she was nine again, flying over the countryside on a toy broom and a muggle crop duster had panicked and doused her with pesticide.

She could almost hear a nervous eight years old Ronald Weasley whena scream erupted at her side "NÍL, MAMAÍ, NÍL!" howled Cormac and in worrying about her boyfriend, Arabella realized she could see. Marietta was sobbing uncontrollably, Tabitha was trembling, and Cormac kept screaming for his mother until he raced for the door.

"Stop him!" someone said, probably Ritchie. Certainly not eight years old Ron.

Arabella stood up, only to feel she was back in her second year, at that stupid obstacle course with Cormac and Eddie. Unwilling to challenge the giant chess set and also unable to climb back to the cerberus' room, twelve years old Cormac lay screaming with a broken leg because of their failed attempts to levitate him. As fourteen years old Cormac opened the compartment door, she realized she wasn't going to save him.

Which wouldn't stop her from trying, she also thought "Petrificus Totalis! Colloportus! Lumos!" she shouted and then grabbed the now immobilized body. In her wand light, she could see the pain, fear and anger in Cormac's eyes. Like she couldn't see them when the centaurs surrounded them.

She pushed him back to the seat, while her classmates sat useless, each lost in their own worlds. Those centaurs? They had it coming, with that of threatening their betters. "Love, I'm lifting the jinx now. You can't get out. There is something out there. Finite"

Cormac curled into a ball crying, his face against the window. Ritchie had his head between his legs and Seraphina was doing her best to comfort both Marietta and Tabitha. Arabella stood in front of the compartment door, wand in hand and unsure what to do if it opened. She racked her mind thinking about the creatures that could do this, with only one horrible answer coming to her. Then the train's lights flared up and Hogwarts Express started moving again.

"What was it?" That was Seraphina. Ritchie was returning to his senses, but Marietta kept sobbing and Cormac remained curled up, and even shaken.

"Mamaí, mamaí" he whispered. Arabella tried to hug him, but he just pulled her away without looking.

"Love, it's me. Look at me" she put her hand on his shoulder, but Cormac just curled tighter.

"I don't think he wants you to look at him in his state" said a still shocked Ritchie.

"WHAT? I'm his girlfriend!"

"YES, which is why I think he doesn't want YOU to look at him like this!"

Arabella felt like hitting the compartment door in frustration. Yes, her often boisterous boyfriend was turned into a crybaby. Yes, she knew there were very few things that could do that, and she should very well be able to explain it to him. She also figured out that blowing up in anger in front of two orphans who just been exposed to a dementor was… well maybe well deserved.

Seraphina gave her a way out "Why don't you go and check on everyone else, Ara?".

She nodded, unlocked the door and walked into the compartment - wand in hand for all the good it would do against a dementor - and delivered a silent scream into one of the wooden panels.

The corridors were starting to get filled with students moving from one compartment to another. She took a deep breath and tried to remember everyone she knew who should have suffered from dementor exposure.

Sarah had lost her father during the war. Hopefully, she was with Cedric who, like Arabella, enjoyed a rather sheltered childhood. Cho missed her brother, but the young man lived and hopefully nothing traumatic had happened to her growing up in Knockturn Alley. Marcus… Marcus! Both his parents were lost during the war. Then there was Luna, who had seen her mother die when she was nine. And Ginny, kidnapped in the Chamber of Secrets just months ago.

She cursed her boyfriend, the idiocy of the Ministry, the dementors and Voldemort since she was at it, and began pushing against the crowd to go check on everyone else. Yeah, 'lost in the war' could sometimes mean 'tossed in Azkaban', but those were family matters she was taught to ignore. The children, after all, were innocent of whatever crimes their parents may or may have not committed.

As she moved through the tide of her fellow students, she saw the lanky form of Eddie Carmichael approaching from the opposite direction.

"Ara, they say that was a dementor" he started when they met and Arabella nodded in return "Just one, passing through and it made this mess? What have those things done to the Continent during Grindelwald's War? Are you ok?"

Arabella huffed, wondering if Eddie had learnt from Cormac to speak a lot when nervous "I'm fine. As for that war, I don't even want to think about it. Those things, they breed on human misery and decay. So Eddie, trust me: the Russian Dragon Corps was less destructive than the British Aurors" she said, with a disgust she didn't know she had in her.

"I'd say. Breeding on misery and decay, during Grindelwald's War?" retorted a horrified Eddie.

"Yes. That's what they are and that's what Grindelwald's tried to stop. How is Marcus doing?" she asked, changing the subject. Whether Eddie knew it or not, she had a pretty good idea what 'misery and decay during Grindelwald's War' meant and not so clear ideas about who were the good and the bad guys during the wizarding side of that war.

"Like crap. Were you with Cormac or Marietta? How are they doing?"

"Like crap" she answered "Just don't let Cormac know you notice"

Eddie stifled a laugh "Ok. Listen, I'm looking for the trolley lady. Some professor went through the train and said chocolate helps with the after effects of the dementors. Did you see her?" he asked.

Arabella shook her head and Eddie started walking in the direction opposite to her. As a group of first or second year students went between them he joked "I'll let Cormac know how so much worried you're for him!"

"Eddie!" shouted Arabella, raising her wand "I've been practicing jinxes over the summer, Eddie!" she half-joked, as the tide of younger, shorter, students pulled them apart and she started again to go towards the end of the train looking for everyone else.

She found Sarah a couple of wagons ahead, surrounded by a mix of fifth year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. Her head rested on Cedric's chest, who still wasn't hugging her "How are you doing?" Asked Arabella.

"Badly" pouted Sarah from her position on Cedric's chest.

Arabella tried to gesture Cedric to embrace her, but he didn't understand and all she accomplished was to make the rest of the girls hold their laughs "At least you're being taken care of" she said with a pointed look at her brother, who didn't look like he was taking any sort of hint.

Sarah smiled at her as she nudged herself into her brother's chest "Yes, thank you for asking" she winked.

Through the window, Arabella saw the hills surrounding Hogsmeade in the distance. They weren't far from Hogwarts "I'll see you at the feast, then" she said, before making another futile gesture at Cedric, who was realizing he was missing out on something but still had no clue what it may be.

She heard Cho calling her just one wagon ahead. She was with Marcus as well as Katie, one of the Gryffindor chasers, and Thomas, a Hufflepuff muggleborn, so Arabella greeted and walked into the compartment.

"Would you believe me if I told you I've been better" answered Marcus at her questioning "I hate those bloody dementors"

"Azkaban must be the worst prison on Earth" Added Cho while Arabella sat next to her. Marcus looked still uneasy, as much as he tried to hide it. Arabella wondered, not for the first time, why a half-blood not only ended up raised by his muggle grandparents but also refused to get in touch with his well known wizard relatives. 'Family issues' her parents would have answered. She sighted. At the end, it was up to him to explain such issues to his classmates, or continue to keep them for himself.

"It makes you wonder how dementors tell different people apart" was musing Cho as Katie and Thomas were discussing if the dementor was in the train looking for Sirius Black, as that was the most likely explanation.

"Or why would the ministry think Black is even in the country. I'd be in Tahiti" added Arabella and Cho giggled next to her "Oh, you'd be in Constantinople, right?"

"Nah, they'd look for me there. And I don't fancy being woken by rebels with mandrakes so I'm skipping Peru as well" said Cho, elbowing Arabella in the ribs.

"I'm taking New Zealand" raised his hand Marcus.

"Eddie got to you" said Thomas

"Just imagine seeing the South Pole from two hundred miles up" answered back Marcus

"For just fifteen minutes" retorted Arabella "And they charge like a thousand galleons for that"

"Ah, but what fifteen minutes!" said, undeterred, Marcus.

"Pfff. You'd just be flying high. I'd buy myself a Firebolt for that money" insisted Arabella.

"She got you there!" ended the argument Katie

Marcus laughed "True. So, what did the dementor make you see? We were just talking about that. Was it the Inca's dragons?"

"I didn't see the dragons. It was only the mandrakes and mom and dad took us out of there fast. No, it was mostly Eddie, Cormac and me trapped beneath that cerberus" she confessed while everyone looked at her with the mischievous look of a bunch who were certainly not talking about what they've seen under the dementor's influence before.

"Oh, was it that bad to be in a locked room with two boys? One of them ended up becoming your boyfriend!" mocked her, playfully, Marcus and even Cho laughed.

Arabella stood up to leave "Not that again! And for your information, Cormac broke his leg there!" It was good to see that Cho was fine and Marcus' mood had improved, but she had no interest in that being done at her own expense. On top, she had been teased about that incident during her entire second year and didn't want to relive the experience.

Cho stopped laughing "Ok, him breaking his leg outside the Quidditch pitch isn't funny, but you three are the ones who sneaked into a dangerous hidden room because 'it was there'"

"Says the witch who runs deliveries through Knockturn Alley" retorted Arabella

"Says the witch who joins me" said, deadpanned, Cho and both girls burst out laughing.

Marcus was about to say something so Arabella pulled her wand preemptively as Eddie, his arms full with chocolates, entered the compartment.

"What's going on?" asked the newcomer.

"Ask your friend" answered Arabella, patting him in the back as she left.

She didn't get to hear Marcus' explanation but she could swear she heard Eddie's groans and his own version of "Not that again". After all, she hadn't been the only one teased for spending an entire Saturday locked in a hidden room with two boys during her second year - the boys had had their own share of the teasing.

She found Luna a few compartments down, as she was already debating whether to go back to her own compartment or not. She was among a group of second year Ravenclaws and seemed to be fine. Which, knowing Luna, meant she was not, but there was little Arabella could do about it, even if Luna wanted to acknowledge how hard the dementor must have hit her. Arabella also had the general idea that Luna didn't have a good time with her classmates, and that's to be charitable about it. But, again, she could do little about it as long as Luna kept denying it. She could intimidate the younger second years, but that would ultimately backfire on Luna.

She was resting on the doorframe and pondering about both that as well as that boyfriend of hers who didn't want her to see him crying, when Luna noticed and asked if she had wrackspurts in her head.

"I dunno. But there are plenty in my compartment" answered Arabella, still lost in her own thoughts.

The other girls shifted uncomfortably in the compartment. "Don't encourage her" said one of them.

"Don't bother her" warned Arabella before saying goodbye and leaving the compartment. She knew the train should be near Hogsmeade by now, so she could continue to see if she could check on Ginny or go back to her compartment to put her school robes on. Unwilling to see her boyfriend, she carried on towards the back of the train.

She finally saw Ginny at the very end of the train, with Ron, a couple of Griffindors she thought were in Ron's year, a grown man who had to be the professor Eddie talked about and, of course, Potter, who was hoarding the biggest chocolate tablet Honeydukes had to offer.

"Ron, Ginny, how are you doing?" She asked.

Ron murmured something that sounded like "fine" and Ginny, clearly not fine, said the same.

Unconvinced, she gave a pointed look at Potter "Do you want some chocolate, Ginny? I've heard it helps"

Potter took the hint and began sharing his chocolate around. "Want some?" He offered her while he broke a piece for himself.

Under the uncomfortable realization that she hadn't bothered to introduce herself to the bunch, Arabella shook her head. She had long ceased to feel the after effects of the dementor, never having experienced serious suffering in her life "No, thanks, I'm mostly pissed off, actually" she explained.

The professor raised an eyebrow at that "Not the typical effect of dementor exposure. There is plenty chocolate to share, don't be shy"

Arabella took a moment to gather her thoughts. She wasn't about to tell a compartment of mostly strangers about her anger at her boyfriend. Nor was she going to share with Potter and his friends all the misgivings she had about the whole monster of Slytherin ordeal: a monster that had to be some sort of snake, mentions to a heir of Slytherin, the parselmouth who banished a candidate for the title of Heir of Slytherin and the girl kidnapped by the monster - or the Heir - together in the same compartment weeks later. It rang all the alarms in her head because if the monster was a snake, Potter could speak to it. And still the Weasleys circled around Potter and wouldn't tell anyone about whatever happened to Ginny. It all smelled fishy.

But she couldn't say that to them right then so she turned to the best next thing "No, it's the effect of the Ministry unleashing a dementor on a train filled with war orphans, sir"

The professor nodded gravely "I can understand that. The dementors are really angry about Black escaping them, though"

"So what? The Ministry shouldn't care about how those things feel. They don't have an ounce of wizarding' pride!" Vented Arabella.

"You think the ministry lacks in wizarding pride?" tried to clarify the professor.

"Obviously" she said, earning a quizzical look from the grown man, as if she had given him the wrong answer. She ignored him "Ginny, you know you can talk to me, right? You too Ron. Just find me anytime" she said and, as the train now stopped at Hogsmeade Station, she left Ginny's compartment and tried to hurry back to her own amid the tide of students exiting the train.

It was really a lost cause, trying to get some information about the stubborn Weasleys. And, on top, she was reminded to add Potter to the list of things to be pissed about. Seriously: a serpentine monster, four petrified students, the cure in short supply because of the unrelated Incan War, a groundskeeper unfairly detained, a professor mind wiped, another student kidnapped and no auror bothered to conduct an investigation. They just had to feed the parselmouth a few drops of veritaserum and ask away!

She snorted. For the time being, she had to get to her robe before getting to the school or she'd start the year losing points for Ravenclaw. She usually waited a week or two for that.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

The adults

Diggory, Amos: Cedric and Arabella's father. Works at the Department of Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures. His ideas of wizarding pride, which he taught his children, are notoriously different from those of werewolves.

Diggory, Eleanor: Cedric and Arabella's mother. A herbologist. A year ago she had the monumentally bad idea to take her family on a holiday to Peru, ignoring the political tensions building up there. The Diggory's had to run for their lives and she's barred from choosing holiday destinations for quite a few years.

The Changs: Cho's parents. Born in China, they settled in the UK in the mid 1980s after spending years in the Ottoman Empire (yes, it's still a thing in the magical world) and opened an apothecary in Knockturn Alley. No, they won't sell you illegal potion ingredients, they are tired of running away. Having been raised in China, they are proficient in wandless magic but hopeless with a wand. Much like the goblins, they consider wand magic to be superior to wandless magic.

Cho's older brother: I just wrote him for flavor, he's pretty much irrelevant.

The Halls: Marcus Belby's maternal grandparents. Their daughter, Victoria, died during Voldemort's War. Ted, Marcus' grandfather, served in the Royal Navy during WW2 and later worked in the ferries going between the UK and France.

Janus Molloy: a centuries old vampire who managed to run the night life at Knockturn Alley since the 19th century. One of the Changs' best customers.

Fifth year students:

Cedric Diggory: Arabella's older brother. Prefect and Hufflepuff's golden boy, he expects to follow his father in a ministry job and live a long, fulfilling and happy life. He won't.

Sarah Fawcett: Arabella's oldest friend. She plays the saxophone in a teenage wizard band and is a fan of muggle rock and pop. Lost her father during the war. A Slytherin. Secondary character.

The Weasley Twins: You know these guys, background characters, really.

Alastair "Al" Meadowes: Cedric's friend, another Hufflepuff. A background character.

Fourth year Ravenclaws:

Arabella Diggory: The main character. In a different and more boring story, she'd grow to become a wandering scholar with a thirst for adventure who would never seriously harm anyone. This is not that story, though.

Cho Chang: You know this one. Her family has been described above.

Marietta Edgecombe: You should remember this one as well. Grew in Hogsmeade, lost her father during the war. Her mother dated Cormac McLaggen's father in the past. Distantly related to the Weasleys on her mother's side, but not in talking terms with that part of her family.

Eddie Carmichael: muggleborn, lives in a high rise flat in London. His parents work in finances. Sci-fi and comic books fan.

Marcus Belby: half-blood, raised by his maternal grandparents in Dover. He knew he was a wizard from his early childhood, as well as the existence of the magical world. Is not in touch with his wizarding family, the notorious Belbys.

(Some) Other fourth year students:

Cormac McLaggen: Gryffindor. The youngest of seven siblings, born in a wealthy Irish pureblood family. Arabella's boyfriend. They are fourteen, so they are not going to get married nor do they have a harmonical relationship with great communication between them. Their relationship is quite rocky, really. Lost his mother because of the war.

Seraphina Flint and Tabitha Whitelock: Both Slytherins, born in Hogsmeade and Marietta's childhood friends. Background characters.

Ritchie Coote: Gryffindor, background character. Cormac's friend.

Thomas Dale and Leopold Sallow: Hufflepuffs, background characters.

Katie Bell and Delphine Sturridge: Gryffindors, background characters. Katie Bell is one of the chasers of the Gryffindor quidditch team.

Another eight unnamed students: background characters, obviously.