AN: Okay guys, here I am again! HAPPY NEW YEAR! Sorry to keep y'all waiting so long, but school is terrible, and my Christmas break has been busy as well. Now that it's the New Year, my resolution is to update more frequently. Not so sure as to how much I'll follow through with it, but I can try! Now, without further ado, CHAPTER FIVE!!!

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After the Sorting Ceremony, Zillah, Eva, and Hermione went directly up to the girls dormitories, but not to sleep.

"Oh, Hermione, what are we going to DO?" asked Zillah worriedly. "My parents must be SO worried about me and Eva, but I'm afraid that if we owl them and tell them where we are, they'll demand that we be brought back home immediately."

"Well, what would Hagrid say?" asked Eva. Both Zillah and Hermione gave her a questioning look, so she continued. "Like a great muggle like you is gonna stop them from goin' to Hogwarts!" she said, doing a fantastic impression of Hagrid from the Sorcerer's Stone.

"Oh, right!" said Zillah. "No matter what my parents say or do, they can't MAKE me come back! They're muggles!"

"How do you know that for sure, Zillah?" asked Hermione quietly. Zillah looked at her questioningly.

"What do you mean, how do I know for sure? If they were a witch and wizard, wouldn't they live like them? Yes. And they don't, they live like muggles, hence, they are muggles," said Zillah confidently. There was no other way to it.

"Not nessicarily. I've read about cases where Hogwarts or other wizarding school graduates go on to live their lives as muggles. It's a rare case, but it does happen sometimes," explained Hermione.

"You read too much, Hermione," said Eva, sounding quite a bit like Ron.

"Come on, let's go see if Harry's asleep yet, I have an idea," said Hermione, suddenly inspired. She then jumped up and rushed out of the room. Zillah and Eva exchanged glances and then followed her. When they reached the nearly deserted common room, they saw Hermione scanning the room, then purposfully striding over to a corner where Ron and Harry sat talking. Zillah and Eva walked quickly over behind Hermione, and all three of them noticed the boys' abrupt stop in conversation upon their arrival in front of them.

"Hello Harry," said Hermione, indicating that she wasn't intending to stop and chat. "We were just wondering if we could borrow your invisibility cloak for the evening?"

"Hermione, it's only the first day and you're already trying to get into trouble!" said Ron, but she ignored him.

"Um, sure, let me go and get it . . ." replied Harry, looking at her strangely and then getting up from his chair to go to the boys dormitories. Hermione showed her impatience by crossing her arms and tapping her foot on the ground. When Harry re-appeared a minute later, she snatched the cloak from him, muttered a thank you, and quickly walked to the portrait hole. Both Zillah and Eva apologized for Hermione's behavior and then followed her to the portrait. The three of them then climbed out, being careful not to disturb the already sleeping Fat Lady. Then Hermione, without saying a word, covered the three of them with the cloak. It barely covered them, and they had to be very careful to not to expose themselves and walk very slowly.

"Hermione, dare I ask where we are going?" hissed Eva.

"The trophy room," she answered.

"Why?" asked Zillah in a whisper. "If you remember correctly, the last time you snuck out to go to the trophy room, you almost got into huge trouble!"

"Well, I learned from my mistake. Now I have an invisibility cloak."

Nearly a half an hour later, they finally arrived at the trophy room, and Hermione practically threw the cloak off of them.

"Son of Merlin it gets so hot under that blasted thing!" she said angrily, then quickly changed her mood back to the normal Hermione. "Now, this," she said, pointing to a very large, think and old book, "is a list of every single student that Hogwarts has ever taught. It's in alphabetical order. Zillah, what's your last name again?"

"Pierce," she answered. Hermione the opened the book and quickly got to the "P" section.

"Pieherc . . .Pieklor . . .Piequod . . . Oh goodness . . ." Hermione's voice trailed off.

"What? Is my dad's name in there?" asked Zillah nervously.

"Is your dad's first name Gregory?" asked Hermione.

"Yes . . ."

"Look," said Hermione, and pointed to a name in the book. There, in fancy cursive printing was "Gregory Mark Pierce. . . 1968 - 1975." Zillah's eyes widened.

"What about my mom? Is she in there?" she asked eagerly.

"What's her maiden name?"

"Consetta." Hermione flipped back to the "C" section of the thick book and was rapidly turning the pages until she got to all the "Conse-" last names.

"Consemer . . . Consenag . . . Consesset . . . Here it is, look!" said Hermione excitedly, and both Zillah and Eva looked at where Hermione was pointing.

"'Marie Adrian Consetta . . . 1968 - 1975,'" read Eva outloud. "Zillah, your parents went to Hogwarts!"

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Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away in London, Marie and GregoryPierce were going absolutely haywire trying to find their daughter and her friend.

"Oh, Gregory, I just don't know what could have happened!" Marie exclaimed for at least the fiftieth time.

"Marie, I'm sure they're just fine--" Gregory tried to say, but was interrupted.

"If they were fine they would have called us by now!" she said testily. "Oh, where could my baby be? My sweet little Zillah, where are you?"

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"Well, that settles it. My parents were traitors, and there is absolutely no way I'm telling them that I'm at Hogwarts now. It's no wonder they were so obsessed about keeping me away from here," said Zillah with a tone of finality.

"But why did my parents keep me away?" wondered Eva aloud.

"Maybe they went here, too," said Hermione. "Let's look for your parents in here."

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"Marie, even I'm worried about Zillah and Eva, but we've done everything in our power to try and get tham back, now we just have to sit and wait to see if they contact us," said Gregory. Marie simply sat on their couch in their home, and suddenly, as if struck with a miraculous idea, she leaped off of the couch and dashed away to their bedroom. When she returned, she had a thin piece of wood in her hand and a malicious glint in her eyes.

"Now, Marie, we swore we'd never go back to that . . ." said Gregory.

"We haven't done everything on our power to get them back, Greg . . . not yet," she said. "And if there's one person who'll know exactly where my child is, it's Albus Dumbledore. You may join me, or you may not, but whether or not you do, I'm still going." Gregory was beginning to be scared of his wife . . . she sounded like she belonged in an asylum.

"Now - now, Marie, you haven't apparated for nearly twenty years . . . you might not be able to do it . . ." said Gregory.

"Watch me," were the last two words she spoke before she disappeared on the spot.

"Marie!" he cried, and in an instant a battle inside himself began - would he follow her and attempt the dangers of apparating? Or would he simply sit here and wait for her to return? Making up his mind, he dashed upstairs, quick as lightning.

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Eva was slightly dissapointed, yet somewhat relieved to find out that her parents had not gone to Hogwarts.

"Zill, I don't care what you think, but I know that you have to tell your parents where we are," said Eva boldly.

"I agree. Your parents love you, and I'm sure they're terribly worried about you. Just because they went to Hogwarts and didn't tell you about it is no reason to keep them waiting," said Hermione.

"Okay, fine, when we get back to the dorms, I'll write them an owl," Zillah consented grudgingly.

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Marie felt a sense of overwhelming contentment once she had apparated outside the Hogwarts grounds. Seeing her old school that she had called home for seven years was like seeing an old friend. She quickly got over this feeling, though, and strode purposefully up the long walk to the castle. Halfway there, she heard a familiar voice calling behind her.

"Marie! Wait! I want to come!" called Gregory, running up to her.

"I knew you'd change your mind," she said to him once he had caught up. Her smile made her seem quite sane again to Gregory, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

When Marie and Gregory reached the front doors, they both knocked on it simultaneously over and over again.

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"Okay, come on, we found out what we needed to know, now let's get out of here before Filch catches us!" said Hermione, and she put the invisibility cloak on top of them and they walked again slowly out of the trophy room. However, they hardly got to the end of the corridor when they heard a loud, echoing banging throughout the entire castle.

"What was that?" exclaimed Eva, forgetting to be quiet.

"I have no idea, but it sounded like someone knocking on a door," said Hermione. The banging continued.

"Do you think someone is trying to get into the castle?" asked Eva.

"I don't know, but I want to find out!" said Zillah, and,even she herself not knowing exactly why,she jumped out from underneath the invisibility cloak and dashed towards the entrance Hall.

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Professor Dumbledore was startled out of his parchments on his desk by a loud, persistent knocking. Instantly recognizing it as the knock on the front doors of the school, he used his magical monitors surronding the school to see who on earth could be coming into the school at such a late hour. When he recognized the two faces that he hadn't seen for so long, he dashed out of his office and used every secret passageway that he could think of to get to the Entrace Hall as quickly as possible. Just as he was coming down one set of steps leading into the entrance hall, however, Zillah was rushing down the other. She noticed him bounding down the steps and froze like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But rather than scolding poor Zillah, the aged Professor merely said, "Zillah, I think you ought to stay here for this." However, he cast an invisibility charm on her before going to the doors, which were still being knocked on, and throwing them open.

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Hermione and Eva were walking as fast as they could without exposing themselves towards the entrance hall.

"I can't believe Zillah would do that! What is she, insane?" exclaimed Eva.

"Give her a break, she did just find out her parents had been lying to her all her life. Something like that can make people do crazy things," reasoned Hermione.

"Who cares about this stupid cloak, now? Half the school is probably up anyway because of that dratted banging!" said Eva.

"Good point," said Hermione, and she threw off the cloak and they both ran at full speed to the entrance hall. Just before they got there, however, they were stopped by some sort of invisible force and thrown to the ground.

"Put the cloak back on!" came Zillah's whispered voice.

"But--" Eva started to protest.

"Just do it!" hissed Zillah's voice, so they did. They then felt hands leading them to the top of the stairs of the entrance hall, and when Hermione and Eva saw what was going on, they couldn't believe their invisible eyes.

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AN: HAHAHA! CLIFFIE! Hopefully this time it won't be FIVE MONTHS until I update again. Maybe only four and a half months. (Don't worry, I'm kidding.) I'll try to have the next update before two more weeks, but no promises.

xXx SpicySugar xXx