Chapter 1

the Train

I'm not like most purebloods in the wizarding world. I live in a group of people like me, and I'm their one and only princess. I'm my vampire clan's princess.

I had just walked through the barrier and onto platform 9 ¾, and I could feel my palms start to get slightly clammy as my level of unease and discomfort rose significantly higher than it had been a few minutes prior. I sighed and shook my head sadly. I was disappointed that neither my mother, nor my father had come to see me off. But, I was used to doing things without them. I had just about raised myself, with the help of thirteen nannies, fourteen butlers, my ten older brothers, and various kitchen staff.

I had just boarded the train and was thinking about going to find one of my brothers, when I was shoved and heard a hurried apology from a girl with long, curly flaming red hair, and snappy emerald eyes, pulling on the hand of a boy with long greasy hair (long for a boy anyway), a long beak like nose, and cold black eyes.

From inside the compartment to my right, I heard a couple voices snickering, and one say,

"I bet he runs for the hills at the sight of shampoo." I turned, looked into the compartment and instantly disliked what I saw. Two raven haired boys were looking out of the compartment window, looking at me now, since the greasy haired boy was gone. Sitting opposite the two black haired boys, were two more boys, who's general appearance I liked more than the other two's. One was a slightly plump boy with mousey brown hair, watery looking blue eyes, and teeth that looked like they needed to see some braces. The other looked like he would be tall when he stood up, though he also looked like he would be slim. He had floppy blond hair that had bangs that fell into golden colored amber eyes.

I swallowed nervously when I realized that they were all looking at me now. Another girl came down the hall, came up to me, and said,

"Hullo, I'm Parker Brown. Who're you?" At first I was taken aback by her colloquialism, but quickly racked my brain and understood what she had said (being that I'm from a very prim and proper family, we don't normally talk in slang).

"I'm Asana Russet," I said, already tiring of saying my name.

"Cool, do ya wanna see if those boys wanna share?" she asked. It took me a moment, but I responded with a slight nod of the head, and I suppose that she took it as an enthusiastic 'Yes!', so she grabbed my hand and pulled me inside the door without knocking.

"It cool if we share with you guys, great." Parker said, not giving them a chance to object. She sat down between the two black haired boys, and pushed me in between the other two. The blond one turned toward me and said,

"Hi, I'm Remus Lupin." I was surprised at his voice, it had cracked when he said 'Remus' and given the dark bruise colored bags under his eyes, I attributed it to fatigue.

"Asana Russet," I said, finally accepting the fact that I would probably be saying my name a lot tonight and for the next couple of days, if I were to seem polite. Remus turned from me when one of the raven haired boys asked him a question (this one had hazel eyes and wore wire rimmed glasses).

I got a weird feeling sitting next to him, almost like some dark negative fore was emanating from him. I inhaled deeply through my nose, and caught the scent of pine trees, wet mulch, and rivers. That accompanied with the golden eyes and the bags under his eyes, led me to the conclusion that Remus Lupin was a werewolf. But, I knew enough to know that he wasn't dangerous except for on the night of the full moon, which was a few weeks away.

"What house do you want to get into?" he asked Remus.

"I don't know, Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. But definetly not Slytherin. But I guess Hufflepuff wouldn't be so bad either. How about you James?" he asked the hazel eyed boy.

"GRYFFINDOR! WHERE DWELL THE BRAVE AT HEART!" James shouted at the top of his lungs.

"You don't have to shout! HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF WE ALL SHOUTED?" asked Parker. Then again, I couldn't really blame her, considering that he had just yelled that right in her ear.

"Oh sorry," he said, "Wait a minute, who are you?"

"Parker Brown," she nearly shouted. Then the other black haired boy turned toward me and asked,

"And who might you be?"

"Oh, she's Asana Russet," Parker said.

"Okay then... I'm Sirius Black, that's James Potter," he said, waving his hand at James, "Peter Pettigrew," he said, pointing at the plump quiet boy sitting next to me, "and Remus Lupin", he said, waving his hand at Remus. The compartment was silent for a moment, until Sirius' stomach whined in hunger.

"Well, I'm off to find the lady with the food," he said, standing up and opening the compartment door. The door slammed shut behind him, and we were submerged in silence once again.

I reached into my rucksack and pulled out my Charms text book. I had only gotten to read the first word, when James groaned and said,

"Not another bookworm, I can barley stand Remus reading all the time, but I will not stand for two bookworms in the compartment at the same time. Put the book away right this very second Russet." I raised my left eyebrow, but said nothing, and continued reading. I got to the end of the page before Sirius came in, empty handed and said,

"She wasn't there!" he wailed. Then, he noticed me and screamed, "BOOKWORM! BOOKWORM!BOOKWORM! BOOK-" but he was cut off by Parer screaming,

"WILL YOU STOP SCREAMING?!"

"NOT UNLESS YOU SAY PLEASE." Sirius said in a singsong sort of yell.

"I'LL SAY PLEASE WHEN PIGS FLY!" Parker yelled back.

They continued to scream at each other for a while until I found a Charm that I thought would do everybody's ears on the train a favor.

"Silencio," I muttered under my breath, my wand poking out from the end of my robe's sleeve, pointing right at Parker and Sirius. They instantly fell silent, and James, Peter, and Remus looked around in bewilderment, Parker looked like she was trying to scream, and Sirius looked like he was swearing. I, on the other hand, was busy trying to squelch a smirk, and continued reading my book. The rest of the train ride went by in silence, and I enjoyed the quiet.

When the train finally stopped, it was getting dark. We went out and got into the boats. Somehow, I got stuck in the same boat as Parker and Remus, but figured that I could have gotten off worse, such as being stuck with James, Sirius, or some other annoying person. Remus was looking through a Transfiguration text book that he had with him, and Parker was staring into the lake's dark, murky, waters.

We were told to duck as we passed under a curtain of ivy, and everyone let out an audible gasp. The castle loomed in front of us, standing black against the purple sky that twilight had brought. The stars glowed as white pinpricks in the darkness, and the crescent moon hung off toward the left side of the castle sky. We went up to the front doors of the castle and a witch with a purple pointy hat met us in the Great Hall.

"Hello, I am Professor Minerva Mcgonagall. I will be sorting you into your school houses tonight. And may I just say, welcome to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry." she exclaimed. We followed her over to a stool with a beat up old wizard's hat on it. Professor Mcgonagall took a scroll out of her pocket and announced,

"I will now read your names in alphabetical order for you to be sorted."...