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Posts: 19 · Joined: May 6, 2008 Posts: 19

This is turning into a novel length fic, it's got 11 and a half chapters completed so far and is definitely not a couple chapters away from being done.

It takes place in the Marauder era at Hogwarts, and the main character is an original that I made up from a random what-if scenario, involving the Gaunt family that was talked about in book six.

I'm only going to post one chapter of it at the moment. Let me know what you think of it so far, and I'll post up the next chapter if you like it.

It shares some common aspects with book 3, but it's not going to be a cheap copy of book 3 taking place in the Marauder era, it's got a completely different story behind it.

The chapters are pretty long, so bear with me here =] This one's about 10 pages on Microsoft Word.

Some background info:
Characters: Katalina Gaunt (original), Lily Evans, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Bellatrix and Narcissa Black, and good ol' Voldy.
Year at Hogwarts: Fifth
Type: General/Mystery/Action/Romance (No slashships)
Plot: Katalina, the main protagonist, went to Hogwarts for about a week for her first year. However, when her father found out that she, a member of a family that could trace its blood back to Salazar Slytherin himself, was sorted into Gryffindor, he pulled her from Hogwarts to homeschool her about what he believed she should be learning.
She escaped his iron grip when she was fifteen and found herself on her way to Hogwarts. There, she will find herself in a love/hate relationship with one of the school's notorious troublemakers; she'll find herself gaining mortal enemies within Gryffindor's rival house; and, most importantly, she'll find herself being chased after a dark wizard gaining more and more power as every day goes by for reasons that she knows not and is very keen on discovering.

Please review if you don't mind =]

Chapter 1
Dementor's Search

Katalina Gaunt was to be starting her fifth year at Hogwarts. She knew it would be a hard year, having never actually been to Hogwarts before. She was a member of the Gaunt family, a strictly pureblood family, a family that had been sorted into the Slytherin house for years, who was in Gryffindor. She was most definitely afraid. Had she not been homeschooled her whole life, she would have been alright with entering her fifth year at Hogwarts. However, since her fifth year was the equivalent of her first, it was impossible for her to feel at all comfortable with it.

True, Katalina had come to Hogwarts when she was eleven, just like most other eleven year old witches and wizards. Then, a week after being sorted into Gryffindor, her father pulled her out of the school to teach her his own courses. The History of Magic became The History of the Dark Arts. Defense against the Dark Arts was just the Dark Arts. Potions included how to make undetectable poisons, and how to detect them. She still had Transfiguration, but the course was twisted to her father's style. The standard Charms course was a course for learning curses and hexes. She also had to study her family history and learn the connection of the dark arts with her ancestors. It just went back and back and back, right on back to Salazar Slytherin himself and further back even than him.

Katalina had come from a long line of dark witches and wizards, most certainly. She herself was a break in the chain, and her father was attempting to mold her back into the chain. Her brother was perfectly okay with the dark arts. He was in his seventh year at Hogwarts, a Slytherin prefect. He was always willing to help discipline his disobedient sibling at home. There was only one method of discipline, and that was the Cruciatus Curse, the Torture Curse, one of the three Unforgivable Curses. Summer was a time she dreaded, for her brother and her father to be in the same house as her both at once was a nightmare. She definitely wasn't going to miss that at all.

Now, here she stood, at Platform Nine and Three Quarters, just looking at the steam engine train. It was a sight that represented both her freedom from her father and her fear of the unknown. It gave her a scared feeling of relief that she could have never explained if she had tried to with all her might. Seeing all the loving families bidding their children goodbye was the one thing that seemed to damage her the most. Where was her caring family? Why couldn't she, just a fifteen year old with a hard life to put behind her, have what everyone else had? Was she not worthy of a family? Maybe she wasn't worthy of even having friends. She was a Gaunt in Gryffindor, after all, the rival house of Slytherin at Hogwarts. That didn't say much for her. Her last name said she was an evil, dark witch, but her house said that she wasn't even good at that. Who could ever befriend someone like her?

Her question was answered in little more than a few seconds later, when a girl about her age stopped in front of her. She was about the same height as Katalina, and had a medium auburn hair color, and bright green eyes. The boy that was with her looked somewhat unsociable. His eyes were dark, his black hair was shoulder length and greasy, and he had a rather large nose and pale complexion that made him appear rather sinister.

"Hi. I'm Lily Evans; this is my friend Severus Snape." She offered her hand, and they shook hands. Severus nodded in acknowledgement, so Katalina did the same.

"Katalina... Gaunt..." she said, a little reluctant to release her surname.

"Have you been to Hogwarts before?" Lily asked curiously. "We didn't recognize you."

"I --" Katalina started, a little panicked about the question. She didn't think anyone would have asked it. Nonetheless, she managed a simple reply. "My father wouldn't let me come to Hogwarts, I was homeschooled."

"Really?" Lily said. "With Albus Dumbledore headmaster?" She seemed a bit intrigued, and Katalina found herself walking onto the train with them. "He's been the best thing to happen to Hogwarts since it was founded, according to most."

"Some don't believe..." she said evasively. "My dad doesn't like him... I didn't know why... mind if I hold onto that?" she asked one of the prefects, what was putting her larger luggage into one of the side compartments of the train; she grabbed her guitar case from him and continued in with Lily and Severus. Lily seemed nice enough, definitely, but the boy with her seemed distant; she, however, couldn't say much more for herself.

"What about your mum?" Lily asked as the three of them found a compartment to sit in; an empty one. They all seemed larger inside than they were outside, clearly enough for eight people to easily fit into, four people per bench. The three of them took one bench, as Katalina's kitten jumped into her lap and mewed.

"She couldn't have very well said with her current state..." Katalina said. "Our old house burned when I was a baby, her body was never even found. We still don't know what caused the fire… or who, if that's the case." She evaded any more questions on the subject of her mother’s death by continuing onto a different subject matter. "I just ran away from my dad, stayed in the Leaky Cauldron all summer. I took the key to my mum's account at Gringott’s; she'd left it all to me anyway. Got tired of being cooped up all day."

"What year're you in? We're both in fifth."

"Me too... and Gryffindor," she added. "Drove me dad nuts, he wanted another Slytherin in the family, we had all been for ages."

"I can't believe parents get broken up over things so silly..." she said.

"Muggleborn?" Katalina asked.

"Yes," she said. "I never had to worry about it. Sev did..." she added, looking over a little cautiously -- he could apparently be rather touchy on this subject.

"Mum kept saying I was a filthy half-breed and didn't deserve to be put in Slytherin," he said. "So I wanted to just to prove I did deserve it, and I did. Put her in her place, but she still doesn't like me very much. Nor does my dad, but he didn't know he was marrying a witch at the time."

"My family had apparently been a long line of pure blood Slytherins that claimed to be descended from Salazar Slytherin himself... so, naturally, me being the first to break this cycle, my dad wanted me dead... I wouldn't doubt we did descend from him..." she added. "Been rumors about different bits of the Gaunt family everywhere..."

"Gaunt..." Lily said, remembering something. "Are you related to Alfred Gaunt?"

"Yes..." she said, quite grudgingly. "My brother... different mum than me, according to my dad. I don't really... get along with him." She sounded as though she were trying to put their feelings towards each other lightly. "Me and Dad had a huge row before I left, he told me I was just like my great aunt, running off against her father's wishes." She laughed slightly. "I told him if her dad was anything like him, then I couldn't blame her."

"Why don't you try to find her?"

"Couldn't if I wanted to," she said. "She died an hour after having a baby, turns out she'd given the muggle she'd run off with a love potion, but eventually stopped, and he left her, but she was already pregnant. She had the baby in an orphanage, it's possible whoever the child is now doesn't even have a clue who their parents are, so I couldn't track them down very well, and wouldn't be mentioned in our family history, being a... what was it my dad said... a 'filthy tainted half blood with an ungrateful blood traitor of a mother'." She sighed. "He really is quite a wonderful person," she added with sarcastic admiration; Lily and Severus both laughed.

"Have you heard your brother's theory on the child?" Lily asked.

"I try to avoid him and my dad during summer, them together is a nightmare."

"He took a different view on it than your father, apparently," Severus said. "He claims that the child grew up to be Voldemort."

"Really?" Katalina said, a little stunned at this. "He's always taken sides with my dad at home. Probably just looking to impress his friends. But then..."

"What?" Lily said, a little fearful -- Voldemort was the wizard slowly working his way towards being the most feared dark wizard of all time. Most people didn't even dare speak his name aloud.

She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "No, he's just being an arsehead, my brother's always been known for coming up with stories that benefit his own status."

She shrugged it off, and as Severus appeared to be about to speak again, they were interrupted with guffaws of laughter outside, probably a few feet from the door.

"God, not already." Lily gave an exasperated sigh. She got up and looked out the window, as did Severus.

"What?" Katalina asked. She did the same, and managed to get a decent look out the window at a growing crowd.

"The local baboons have broken out of their cage." Lily was scowling towards the front of the crowd. "James Potter and Sirius Black. The short chunkier one is Peter Pettigrew, follows the other two around worshipping them like Gods. Don't know who the fourth is, he must be new."

She saw someone who was clearly a Slytherin prefect dangling upside down from his ankle in midair, a boy with shoulder length black hair controlling this, three of his friends with him, and a crowd of people around them, laughing. Katalina recognized this prefect, clearly, as her brother. She followed the other two out the door. She nearly laughed a little herself, but kindly decided not to. Alfred was most likely older than the boy and his friends, and begging to be put down. It was, however, a bit cruel. Katalina, who'd mastered silent spells extremely early and extremely well, was deciding between spells to use to kindly help out her brother. She took her time deciding, and Lily pushed her way to the front of the crowd. Katalina heard her speaking from the back.

"Can't you idiots at least save it until you get off the train?" she snapped at the four in front.

"No," said the one using the spell. "Gaunt here was mouthing off at us for being outside our compartment while the train's moving."

"Well, it's dangerous!" she said. "And prefects're supposed to," she added. "You're not supposed to be out here."

"And you are?" asked another, the one with black messy hair and glasses. "Or did you come out here just to tell us off? Not wise, you see what happened to Al. You're lucky, I'm too polite to hex a girl, and Sirius is occupied at the moment."

"I could do two at once," Sirius said. "Just let me use your wand, James."

"Nah, then I'd practically be doing it."

Lily was pulling out her own wand now.

"Oh, look, she's nice enough to let me use her own wand!" Sirius said with sarcastic enthusiasm.

She pointed it at him.

"Like you'll do anything," Sirius scoffed at her.

Suddenly, he was being hoisted up by his ankle, but Lily wasn't doing it. Katalina made it to the front of the crowd, as he dropped his own wand and her brother fell with a small thud! on the carpet. Katalina had her own wand pointed at Sirius.

"She's too polite," Katalina said.

The crowed Oooohed at the sudden intervention.

"Let me down!" Sirius said, trying and failing to reach his wand. Alfred stood up and grabbed his own wand. He put Sirius down, and Katalina directed her focus to him.

"Look at this," Alfred said. "Two of the people I dislike most getting detentions before school's even started. Report to Filch at eight o' clock on Monday night." He grinned maliciously, then, grin fading, turned focus to Katalina. "I don't need help from any filthy blood traitors."

Rather than glower at him, as most would have done, she grabbed his collar and pushed him into the wall, wand pointed in between his eyes.

"And I don't need lip from people who's arses I've just saved by choice," she snarled back. Then, with a grin, she added, "And it didn't seem like you were about to get out of it yourself, you know." She put on a high pitched, mocking voice. "'Please, please put me down! I won't give you detention, I won't take points away from your house, please, please, please, I'm sorry! I'll never bother you again, I promise!' Yeah," she said, over guffaws of laughter at her impersonation, even from the boy she'd just used his own spell on. "I'm sure you had the situation completely under your control."

She lowered her wand, then, as she'd expected, had to dodge a jet of red light; it could have easily been mistaken as a stunning spell, but she knew otherwise. She glanced over her shoulder.

"You'd have been getting a lot worse than detention if that had hit me, Al," she said coldly. Her and Lily made their ways to the back of the crowd, followed by quite a few Ooooooo's at her last statement, from those who'd taken it as a threat. She, Lily, and Severus made their way back into their compartment, as the crowd faded. However, the other four, lingered for a moment, even as everyone else filed back into their compartments. The four of them; Sirius Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, waited until the rest of them were gone, except themselves and Al Gaunt, and Sirius spoke.

"She doesn't get two detentions for that, at least?" he asked, a little disappointed.

"Shut up!" Al snapped at him, walking off.

"Alright, then..." James said, a bit confused, as they watched him walk away to his own compartment, then slam the door after him. "That's a little odd..."

Inside their compartment, Sev and Lily were both questioning her as to how she'd known that spell.

"What's the big deal?" she asked. "It's pretty much the same as Wingardium Leviosa, only directed exactly at an ankle. And besides, I could've learned it out of one of my spell books, for all you know."

"That wouldn't be possible," he assured her.

"Why not?"

"Because I made that spell," he said. "Levicorpus. It was designed as you said, Wingardium Leviosa directed at an ankle, but it's easier just to have one incantation without worrying about where to direct the spell, as long as it's directed at a person in general. It's Libertacorpus to let them down, and it's usually used as a silent spell, so no one ever knows when they're going to be hoisted up by their ankle in the middle of a corridor at school."

"How come you didn't get another detention when you threatened your brother like that? And twice, for that matter," Lily asked.

"Deep down inside that cold exterior, I think he's afraid of what I'll do to him when I'm not under the watch of his daddy," she said, grinning. "And the second time wasn't a threat..." she added, both coldly and a little nervously. "Anyone who's dumb enough to do that under such close watch is dangerous..."

"But it was just a Stunning spell," Lily said, confused.

"No," Katalina said. "I assure you it wasn't. Stunning spells don't feel hot when they pass the side of your neck." She lifted her hair and pointed to a red mark that would most likely turn into a burn blister within the next hour. "Also, the shape they're fired in is a spiral of red sparks, not a straight jet."

"Then what was it?" she asked.

"The Cruciatus Curse..." she said. Lily gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth. Sev looked surprised as well.

"The Cruciatus Curse?" he repeated. "On the Hogwarts Express?"

"Like I said," she sighed. "Anyone to do that is stupid and dangerous. I wasn't threatening him, I was stating the facts..."

"He could easily get arrested for it," Lily agreed.

"Could you both do me a favor and not mention to anyone I'm related to him yet?" she asked. "People'll figure it out eventually, but I'd like to delay people knowing my relation to him for as long as possible..."

They both agreed.

At that time, they heard voices close to their door, one of them quite angry, the others amused. They burst into the compartment, Sirius with his wand out. He stopped in front of Katalina and pointed it at her.

"How the bloody hell did you get out of that?" he demanded, while the other three laughed. Lily looked ready to chop off Sirius's arm, and Sev glared in the opposite direction.

"Out of what?" she said incredulously, standing up as well. She pulled out her own wand and pushed him down onto the other bench-like seat unexpectedly; he dropped his wand next to him, staring crosseyed at the one now pointed between his own eyes. "In case you didn't notice, I've got a detention as well, and I for one hope we've got them with different teachers, or I'll end up hexing you halfway through and getting another!"

"I'm talking about from threatening a school prefect twice in under a minute!" he shot back, but recoiled when he remembered he wasn't in the best position to mouth off.

"He figured on using his own methods of punishment rather than detention," she said. "I suppose you didn't notice that that wasn't a normal Stunning spell he fired?"

"Wha...?"

She sighed and lowered her wand. She sat back down, as the other three came in and did the same, on the bench seat Sirius was on rather than the other. "That was the Cruciatus Curse, idiot. A Stunning spell can't burn your skin, and I've got one hell of a nasty burn mark on my neck, I'm lucky I dodged it when I did. And a stunning spell is spiraled, the Cruciatus Curse is a straight jet of sparks."

"Get real," James said. "With all the guard around here he wouldn't have dared use that on another student."

"Look it up," she said. "You'll see I'm one hundred percent correct, whether you like it or not. He's apparently not the brightest person in the world."

"Apparently..." James said. "There're teachers on the train, we've seen a few of them, its surprising none of them came out to see what was going on."

Their attention turned as Sirius spotted Sev.

"Snivellus!" he said, in a mock friendly voice. He didn't turn his head from the window out into the hallway. "Didn't see you in our crowd of fans and admirers."

"He was too scared he'd be next," James said, laughing. He appeared to be trying to ignore James's and Sirius's taunts.

"Cut it out," Lily said.

"Make us," James said. She and Katalina both, at the same time, pulled out their wands and stood. Lily pointed her wand at James, and Katalina pointed hers at Sirius.

"I'm perfectly willing to," Katalina shot at both of them. "You, Lily?" she asked.

"Definitely," she said, jabbing it into James's forehead. He winced.

"That hurt!" he said.

"It'll hurt even worse if you keep on with this nonsense!" she said. "Now stop it!"

"I wasn't thinking of hurting, really," Katalina said, looking over at Lily. "I was thinking a good strong Confundus charm. Make them think they're baboons. They must have gotten Confunded in the past, too, seeing as they're under the illusion that they're people at the moment."

Sirius had taken the opportunity in which she'd looked away to grab his own wand; when she turned back, he was pointing his at her. She sat down, and the both continued pointing and glaring. Lily looked down at them, shook her head, and sat down herself, putting her own wand away.

"Would you two call a truce already or something?" she said to Sirius and Katalina after half an hour of them still silently pointing their wands at each other and glaring. "You know, before you become mortal enemies?"

"She's a Slytherin, I'm guessing?" Sirius asked spitefully.

"Funny, I thought you'd be one," Katalina said. "Dangling people from their ankle in the middle of the hall, honestly!"

"She's a Gryffindor," Lily said.

"Wish I had been a Slytherin," Katalina said, a little thoughtfully, a little grudgingly. "I'm glad I'm in Gryffindor, I didn't want to be in Slytherin at first... My dad had doubts I would be, and he wanted me to be, so he decided to home school me for the first year, just to see. When I was sorted, they send the Sorting Hat with a Hogwarts employee to houses of children who may be in Hogwarts the next year, I was put in Gryffindor."

"How'd you get out of being homeschooled if it pissed him off that bad?" James asked.

"Ran away," she said happily. "And I'm never going back to that place again. I don't care if I have to stay at inns for all my summers. I'd rather be alone. I've got inheritance money from my mum, stole the key to her vault, she left it all to me anyway, so I don't need financial support and I can easily pay for costs of inns and hotels."

"Inheritance?" Sirius said, lowering his wand without realizing he had.

"She died in a fire when I was about six months old," she said. "No big deal. If my dad was married to her, God only knows how horrible she was... I know that's no way to talk about your dead parents that you've never met, but it's the truth. He'd've never married a blood traitor muggle lover. Curious, they never found her body in the fire, but with the amount of her blood they found, it's been figured out she wouldn't have lasted long even if she had gotten out."

"If it was a fire..." James said slowly, "... then how was there blood?"

"The hell if I know," she said with a shrug. "My dad never gave me the full set of details of everything that happened; he didn't like talking about it. Only thing that ever got to him."

James had started to speak again, but was distracted by the luggage rack. "Is that a guitar?" he asked, pointing.

"Go near it and you'll regret that you were ever born," she said. Everyone looked over at her, even Sev, who'd been so keen on looking out the window. "Sorry," she said. "It's just that it's the last thing I have to remind me of how much my dad despised me. He always hated it. The fact I used electricity in his house. I purposely didn't bewitch the amplifier to run by magic until I left. Annoyed the hell out of him, but I'd hex him if he ever set a foot near it," she said relishingly. "Good times."

"There aren't even any electrical outlets in my house..." Sirius said.

She laughed. "I put one in my room myself. Without magic. Bought the tools to do it at the local hardware store. Annoyed him even more that I did that when I could have just conjured everything out of the air."

Slowly, as they continued talking, the train began to come to a halt. By the time they were all properly introduced, the train had stopped. They noticed this.

"We can't be there yet..." Sirius said, looking out the window, his hands pressed against it. "No," he said. "Someone's getting on, it looks like," he told them. As though burned or shocked, he pulled his hands back. "What the..." The window started to freeze and crack. "Dementors?"

"Dementors?" Katalina repeated, disbelieving, and looked out the window herself.

"There's been a rumor going around that Voldemort --" there were shudders within the compartment, except from Katalina, who was used to the name in her household, Sev, and Sirius. "-- tried to get a teaching job at Hogwarts," Severus said.

"I heard that," Katalina said. "Then again, maybe they're coming to take away that prefect," she added hopefully.

There were a few nervous laughs around the compartment; dementors were nearly as feared as Voldemort himself. Dementors were creatures that guarded the wizard prison, Azkaban. They were tall, hooded, and faceless, except for a gaping hole that was their mouth. They didn't see people, they felt fear. They went towards the source of the fear and would feed off of all the happy thoughts within the mind of that person, until nothing was left but the bad memories. They had once been people themselves, some of them, but had since had their own souls sucked from their bodies. They couldn't kill, but their finishing move was the Dementor's Kiss, where they'd clamp their jaws down on their victem's jaws and proceed to suck out their soul, leaving them a shell with a beating heart, but no will to live, and, eventually, they'd either waste away or become dementors themselves.

"Still, to search Hogwarts and the train..." James said.

"There've been plenty cases of dementors going bad," Lily said. "Especially lately, You-Know-Who's been persuading them over to his side. It's awfully risky bussiness..."

"I suppose they'll search... all the compartments?" Katalina asked nervously, her grip tightening on her wand.

"Yeah..." Lily said. "Probably..."

They all sat silently in wait, and then, the lights in their compartment went out, and they could see their breath in little puffs of fog.

"They're getting closer..." she said quietly, more to herself than the others. She tried to muster up an overpoweringly happy memory. Nothing seemed to do; the dementors seemed to be leaking fear and sorrow into their compartment already.

A scabbed, black, skeletal hand reached over the window of their compartment. She was ready; she was remembering the moment she stepped onto Diagon Alley; the feeling of being freed. It opened the door, and there were at least five there. And no teachers keeping an eye on them? That was risky. The door opened, and they started to swoop in. Katalina stood, pointed her wand, and said the incantation clearly: "Expecto Patronum." She thought of nothing but that thought, and maintained focus on it, even as a silver phoenix burst out of the end of her wand and darted at the dementors. They turned quickly and left, making odd screaching noises that had to be their form of a scream. She flicked her wand, and the phoenix vanished, then the compartment door closed. The lights flicked back on; she had apparently scared the dementors off the train altogether. Lily hit her.

"You could have said you knew how to do that!" she said loudly, hitting her in the arm again with her own wand. The four on the other bench were laughing at her reaction.

"I didn't know if I'd be able to or not -- careful with that thing, you're about to catch my bleedin' arm on fire!"

Lily made a noise of frustration, glared at Katalina for a moment as she put her wand away, then decided to stare at the bottom of the luggage rack over her head.

"At least they're gone..." Katalina said sheepishly with a shrug. They heard someone running down the hall of the train. An old, stern looking witch stopped at the door of their compartment and opened it. Her hair was black and drawn back in a tight bun. She looked completely astounded.

"Which of you conjured it?" she demanded of them. Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter stopped laughing immediately. "Which of you conjured the Patronus?"

"The Pa-what-us?" Sirius said blankly, voicing what the rest of them were definitely thinking, except Katalina. She looked a little scared.

She sheepishly raised her hand, her eyes even wider than usual. This made the four on the other bench laugh again.

"Come with me," she said.

Katalina got up and walked out of the compartment slowly with whomever the witch was that was standing there in emerald green robes.

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