Daughter of the Dark

Chapter 2

Zarah looked around the great hall, admiring the beautiful golden goblets and starry night sky. It wasn't home, but it was still a pretty good looking place. She knew that in a matter of moments, she would be sorted into a house, and would be accepted by one of those long tables. At least she wouldn't have to put up with bratty little eleven year olds anymore. Hell, if she ended up where she thought she'd be, the little ones wouldn't dare ever even try to talk to her ever again. Especially the Creevey brat with his stupid camera. Poor little guy fell into the lake, just like his brother.

According to her father, there were four houses: Ravenclaw, aka the house of The Half-Wits, Hufflepuff, house of Dunderheads, Gryffindor, House full of people who all want to die to help Harry Potter, and Slytherin, House of the Noble. So, basically, she was expected to get into Slytherin. Or be severely injured, whichever one suited her best. And that really did not leave an option. Plus, Slytherin didn't seem so bad...just because there house symbol was a snake and half of them were miniature Deatheathers didn't mean anything. Plus, her father had been in Slytherin. And that meant she would have to be in Slytherin too, whether she wanted to be or not.

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Harry sat down between Ginny and Ron at the Gryffindor table. It turned out that when you're Head Girl, you get the privilege of welcoming the new students to Hogwarts. So Hermione wasn't going to be sitting with them for awhile. Actually, since Hermione was now Head Girl, she wouldn't be spending much time with them at all. Which wasn't at all good for Harry, or for Ron come to think of it. For one thing, Ron might actually fail potions. For another, Hermione was kind of like his sister that he never had. She was always there to help him with homework, Snape, Voldemort, or even his love life. Hell, without her, he might not have made it through these last couple of years.

There was always Ginny though. And Ron was still there. He was after all, his best mate. And even though he had his flaws, (like his eating habits), he had pretty much always been there for him. Plus, Hermione couldn't play Quidditch to save her life.

"Hey Harry! How was you're summer?"

Harry looked up and grinned at the Irish boy. He and Seamus had finally gotten over their differences and were actually pretty good friends.

"Fair enough. Too bad about the Quidditch World Cup, though. I can't believe the Tornados won."

"It was all because Troy injured himself. When you lose your best chaser, you lose everything. Shame you couldn't make the game. It was amazing, mam managed to us get box seats!..Anyways, I got to run, Parvati calls."

Parvati was Seamus' girl of the week. It wouldn't be long before he was off with some other pretty girl. Then again, Parvati might dump him. She was known as one to get bored very easily. It would definitely be interesting while they were together though. Two people famous for cheating with other people after a day of dating them who had decided to date each other.

Harry sighed, running his had trough his messy hair. Suddenly he felt a wave of the familiar depression take hold of him again. Ron, who was ignoring him, was chatting a pretty sixth year. On his left, Ginny was talking to Dean. They were rumoured to be an item, though neither of them would openly admit it. Something bothered him about that. It wasn't that he didn't Dean; it was just that he didn't like Dean with Ginny together as a couple...and he couldn't figure out why. He sighed again. He seemed to be the only one without some one to talk to. This was going to be a lonely year.

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"Draco? Draco, come on, if we don't get in the great hall soon, we won't get a good seat. I want to be as far away as Theo as I can. I owe him 10 galleons for losing a bet, and he won't leave me along."

Draco mentally groaned, but allowed himself to be steered over to the Slytherin table by Pansy. She, courtesy of orders from his father, had been his girlfriend ever since the beginning of the holidays. The Parkinsons were a good alliance, and had been friends of the Malfoy's for hundreds of years. Therefore, he and Pansy were practically written off as married. Her mother, his mother, their mothers all agreed. Three weeks after school ended, Pansy would become Mrs. Draco Malfoy. The thought alone was enough to make his think about leaving the country.

In the mean time though, he was going to enjoy every moment of his last year. Third year prefects barely got any work, since most of it got dumped on the measly little fifth years. Actually, more like third year Slytherin prefects didn't get any work. They just got the younger years to do their work for them. However, they still got the advantage of giving detentions, using the prefect bathrooms, and shoving it in Potter's face that he wasn't good enough to be one. Draco just hoped that Weasel hadn't been made Head Boy. Salazar Slytherin would be rolling over in his grave if he heard that two Weasleys had been made Head Boys in less than ten years.

Draco was actually happy that he wasn't Head Boy. Head Boys had to be helpful to the little brats, and had to actually pretend to give a damn about school events. He might even have to be civil to the Mudblood Granger, since she was probably Head Girl. Plus, it would put his whole have-the-best-year-of- his-life-before-being-tied-down-to-ugly-annoying-witch scheme to hell.

Maybe, just maybe, if he was lucky, he could get out of the stupid marriage. There was only two ways to do that though: either commit suicide and hope the in his next life he doesn't know anyone by the name of Pansy Parkinson, or find a pureblood witch that his father thought was more suitable than Pansy. It looked like he was going to have a pretty short life.

"Draky? Are you listening to me Draky? You should really pay more attention to me. After all, I am going to be your wife in less than a year!"

Draco turned around and attempted a somewhat nice smile which turned into looking more like an ugly grimace.

"I can't talk to you right now, Pansy. I mean honestly. The sorting is about to begin, and you know that I like to watch it."

Draco smirked slightly. Like he would give a damn if all the first years dropped dead right now. Still, the sorting did have its good points. For one thing, he would get to see were the Hawkins girl would get sorted. For another, it was fun to watch the little mongrels squirm.

"Kyle, Anderson"

"GRYFFINDOR." Poor kid. You get sorted into Gryffindor, and you might as well accept an early death for a worthless cause. He yawned, applauding lazily whenever someone got sorted into Slytherin.

"Creevey, Sean"

"GRYFFINDOR" Mordred. Another Creevey. The eldest one had tried to take a picture of him on his broom stick last year. Poor kid was in the hospital for a week.

"Zabini, Alia."

"SLYTHERIN". No surprise there. He had met Blaise's little sister once. Chip off the Zabini block if there ever was one. Beautiful, sly, intelligent, and a certain knack for getting what she wanted.

"Welcome, welcome to a new term at Hogwarts. Before you all fill your empty stomachs, I have an announcement to make. Hogwarts has accepted a student from America. Will you all please join me in welcoming Zarah Hawkins to our school."

A round of muttering went around the Great Hall. The male population of the school immediately started figuring ways to win her over. All were trying to remember if Hogwarts had ever accepted a foreign student. Draco rolled his eyes and waited for Dumbledore to continue.

"She moved from the United States of America over the summer. It is unusual for a student to be sorted in her seventh year, but we have decided that, considering all things, it would be wise for all to be integrated in our four houses."

Draco watched as Zarah stepped forward. Her face hadn't betrayed any emotion throughout Dumbledore's speech. Her face was masked with only a small smirk. Sure signs of a Slytherin. Maybe this year wouldn't be as bad as he thought it would be.

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Zarah mentally groaned throughout Dumbledore's speech. She hated being in the spotlight, and he was basically shoving her into it. She had told him plenty of times not to introduce her, because it would just make it scene. Blasted man. Every time, he had just chuckled and did that eye twinkle thing that she had never figured out how to do.

Zarah marched forward and placed the hat on her hair. Stupid thing fell right down to her eyes. It was probably making her look ugly and was most certainly messing up her hair.

"Hmmmm....what have we here? You're like your mother you know...even though you try to be like your father. Full of courage, and not afraid to stand up for yourself, or the ones you love. Sure signs of a Gryffindor. No? You would do well there you know, you could escape the dark side forever. It's your choice though. I could put you in Slytherin...you are like your father in that respect... you both have far too much ambition for one person. But you don't really want to go there either now, do you? Well, that only leaves me one choice...better be...

"RAVENCLAW"

The third table on Zarah's right exploded into applause. The males were giving each other high fives, and the girls were already gossiping. Zarah froze on the spot before slowly trudging towards the mass of blue and bronze. Ravenclaw. Shit. Her father was going to kill her.

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Zarah yawned sleepily, blinking slowly, and sat up. Then froze. Last night came shooting back to her. It wasn't that Ravenclaw dorms were bad. In fact, they were quite nice. It turned that it was tradition for every seventh year Raveclaw to add an improvement to the dorms before they left. The result was quite spectacular. Windows were charmed to only let in a certain amount of light in, depending on the time of day. Everyone slept in kind size beds, with great sheets. Each dorm even had its own bath, modeled after the one in the prefects' washroom. In fact, it was nicer that her old room.

It wasn't that her dorm mates weren't nice either. Padma Patil had shown her around the dorm, giving away all the secret passage ways to the kitchens, or to certain classrooms. Sharon Parks had even lent her a set of school robes so that she could wait a day until getting a pair for herself. And Rachael, Melanie, and Teal had spent a good two hours giving her tips on which boys to date and which boys to stay way around from. According to them, Draco Malfoy was the best looking, with Harry Potter trailing him. But Harry Potter was ten times nicer, and Draco Malfoy was a pain in the ass.

It was that she was going to be so dead when her father got her alone. The effect of the last duel she had had with him still weren't totally gone. It had taken a week to get rid of a nasty bruise on her leg. And the ones on her upper arms were still there. Not that he purposely hit her. He just wasn't afraid to use violent spells that would knock her against walls, or against the ground.

She checked her watch, flinging herself out of bed when she saw the time. She had an hour to go for her run before her dorm mates would wake up. And she needed to go for a run.

Running was Zarah's gateway away from the stress of her life. When you run, there are no problems, no fathers, no plans, only you and nature. And nothing was going to get in the way of that.

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Zarah walked into the Great Hall and sat at the Ravenclaw table. She grimaced slightly at what she was wearing. Why Hogwarts had to have such ugly uniforms she had no idea. The bronze stripes, which looked more like puke brown in this light, clashed with the dark navy ones. She grimaced again. At least Ravenclaw colours were better than the Gryffindors. The other four girls were still sleeping...more like sleeping and/or preening.

"Ms. Hawkins! So glad to see you again!"

She pasted a smile on her face and turned towards Flitwick. She sighed, short, cheery, Flitwick was not who she had expected to be her Head of House.

"Now, how about we fix you up a schedule. According to your father, you would like to try for a NEWT in Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Arithmancy, Study of Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, and, of course Potions!"

She grimaced slightly. No, she would not like to do those subjects, but what choice did she have?

"Thanks Professor, that would be great."

"No problem my dear, no problem at all. Now, it might be a little hard to give you all of these classes at once. So, would you mind if I gave you Care of Magical Creatures with the Gryffindors, and Study of Ancient Runes with the Slytherins? The rest of your classes would have at least half the class comprised of Ravenclaws, but I'm afraid that not all of the Ravenclaws are as ambitious as you are."

"It's fine professor. I'm new anyway, so I don't think the usual house rivalry will apply."

"Excellent, my dear, excellent. Well, here you are. And your first class is double potions. All four of the houses are in this class, since Professor Snape is so picky."

"I know. I'm sure I'll do fine. Thank you again."

Zarah grimaced. Double potions, first thing. She had no luck at all.