They did indeed talk about it in their quarters at Hogwarts. They had, of course, missed the sorting, but neither of them cared about that very much. They had much more pressing matters at hand. Currently, they could be found in their quarters, more precisely in Arielle’s bedroom with Severus lying on the fluffy bed and Arielle lying next to him, with her head resting on his chest, while his fingers gently carded through her hair.

The girl was asleep after being too exhausted to stay awake any longer. Especially after retelling him what happened. Severus himself was doing a great job by keeping his anger at bay, if he did say so himself. In fact, he was planning revenge right at this very moment. He knew that Vernon Dursley would NOT get away with almost killing his daughter and he would pull charges against him the next day, having his daughter’s consent.

Yes, they had talked about that as well. At first she was hesitant, but when he assured her that the trial won’t become public if he had anything to say about it, she acquiesced and agreed to have the trial. Although she did ask if it could wait for a few weeks at least, until she felt a bit better with all that has happened to her. They had also talked about who it could be that locked the barrier. The barrier shouldn’t have locked itself up. There was no explanation for that, though.

Severus looked down at the black mop on his chest, watching the girl’s head move up and down as he breathed. It felt so good to feel the girl’s head on his chest, knowing that she was only sleeping, and that she wasn’t hurt too badly. If he could, he would have killed that fat blob of that Uncle of hers. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave Arielle alone, and she would be alone if he killed the muggle, because he would have been sent to Azkaban. And he didn’t want that. And for a completely different reason than he had in the last few years.

Someone knocking on their chamber’s door brought him out of his musings and he carefully lifted Arielle off his chest and tucked her in, before going out to the living room and opening the doors. There was a whole group of people waiting outside and Severus had to fight against rolling his eyes as he let the people in. There was the Headmaster and the Deputy Headmistress, professor Flitwick, Remus Lupin and Arielle’s friends (Cedric, Neville, Blaise, Fred and George).

“Professor, what happened?” was the question flung at him by Blaise Zabini. With a sigh, Severus motioned the group to sit down and when they obeyed, sat down in his own armchair as well, steepling his fingers in front of his face as he stared in the sparkling fire in his fireplace, before sighing again and turning his attention to the waiting people.

“The barrier locked up and Arielle couldn’t get through it while trying to escape from her uncle.”

There was a long silence and then the students asked one over another, “Her uncle?” “What happened?” “Is she okay?” “Can we see her?” The adults were silent as they watched him in worry. He didn’t seem like himself today after all. They knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t in his right mind. His answer was also the answer as to why he was acting like this.

“He attacked her. If I haven’t had come there in that moment, I believe that she wouldn’t have survived.”

Blaise and the other students all paled, as well as the professors and Lupin. They hadn’t expected that her uncle would become quite so vicious after all. They didn’t know all of what happened in the Dursley house. Severus did, and even then he was sure that she hadn’t told him everything yet. But from what he did know, it was horrible. And that was one of the main reasons he didn’t say anything when she acted like a seven-year-old sometimes. She did have the right to make up for the lost childhood, after all, and he wouldn’t take that away from her. Plus, he actually liked seeing her so care-free. It made his old heart ease a bit as he remembered watching her jump around as she tried to chase the fireflies one evening as they took a walk down the beach.

“I’ve taken her to St. Mungo’s and Healer Smethwyk healed her as much as he could.”

“As much as he could?” Remus asked in a faint voice. Severus sighed again and turned his attention on the werewolf as he contemplated on how to bring the news up. “Yes,” he finally replied, “Dursley had broken several of her ribs and she was having trouble breathing. That, combined with the emotional shock she had gotten when he started attacking her, made her lungs become damaged, and the Healer made a prognosis that it will end up with her having asthma.”

Minerva and Filius had put their hands on their mouth, to prevent themselves from exclaiming loudly, Albus and Remus were both very pale and the children were quiet. Neville was shaking, with tears streaming down his face, while Blaise was doing a good job at keeping up his emotionless mask, not wanting the others to see just how much of a shock that was to him. Fred and George were clenching their fists and Severus knew right away that they were already planning their revenge on the fat muggle. Cedric on the other hand, being the eldest of them all, just sat there quietly, staring at his hands.

“Can we see her?” he finally asked. “I want to see for myself that she’s okay.”

Severus looked at the Hufflepuff Prefect with a contemplating expression on his face, trying to make a decision. “You may. But be careful not to wake her up. She has had a trying day and has only fallen asleep before you all came in. She needs as much sleep as she can get to recover from the experience.”

After the children all promised that they would be quiet, he stood up and led them to her room. He begun to wonder why the children were here at all, but he let it pass for now. He would always have a chance to ask his colleagues later. As he opened the doors to her room, the children quieted down, as if they knew that they shouldn’t use loud voices and followed him inside. All of them stopped at the bottom of the bed and stared at the slumbering girl on the big, white, fluffy bed.

After a few minutes, Neville was the first one to move to Arielle’s side as he put his hand on her back and patted it softly, before leaving the room. Severus was surprised at the thoughtfulness of the Longbottom child as he watched the others say their own goodbyes to his daughter.

The next few days (being the weekend) were spent adjusting to Arielle’s new condition, with the house-elves dusting their chambers every morning and evening, and with Grandpa Albus charming some windows in the rooms Arielle frequented most often so that they could get some fresh air in, to ease Arielle’s breathing. The inhalers that Severus got from St. Mungo’s were distributed to every one of her friends and family, and she got two for herself, just in case one of them ran out of the medicine.

Arielle was happy that everyone was worried about her so much. Sure, she felt smothered sometimes, but as she didn’t have many people to worry about her before she got to Hogwarts, it felt nice now. The most amusing times were when everyone asked her if she needed anything and she felt like a princess that could just order people around and they would bring her everything she desired. But that thought actually made her cringe a bit. She didn’t want to become spoiled like her cousin Dudley. She would have to work hard on that, she decided to herself as she sat on the window seat that her Grandpa charmed to be under her window so that she could sit and watch the scenery out of her window. Of course, the windows were charmed so that she only had to wish to see something and it would show it to her. Most often she watched the beach or forests on the country side. She hadn’t gotten to watch much of it yet, because it was only a few days ago that she had gotten it of course, but she was getting used to it steadily. And she liked it very much.

The doors opened somewhere behind her and she turned her head to look at the newcomer. It was her father of course. She gave him a small smile as he walked through the room towards her and sat himself on the window seat as well. She moved forward and snuggled against him quietly. It would be tomorrow that she would return to civilisation, so to say. She was already given the class schedule and her things were already sent to the Ravenclaw dormitories for the school year. Now the only thing that was left to do was for Arielle to leave their quarters in a few minutes. They had decided that she was going to sleep in her dormitory in the Ravenclaw Tower tonight so that she wouldn't feel overwhelmed the next day when she went to classes.

ooOoo

The next morning, she woke up to the alarm she had set up with her wand. It was simple really, she just spoke the incantation and put her wand under her pillow and it started vibrating at the set time. It was half past seven when it started vibrating that morning. Sitting up on her bed, she looked around to see that the other girls were still asleep and smiled to herself. She wasn’t best friends with any of the group, but they didn’t shun her or anything like that – they were friends and talked about anything when they could. With a quiet sigh she moved until her legs were dangling over the edge and stood up, putting her feet in the soft fluffy slippers her grandpa had given her last year when she had first started living with her Papa. She also put a fluffy white bathrobe over her sleeping gown and went down to the common room. There were a few early risers already, reading on the couches near the fireplace and a girl that Arielle never saw before reading a newspaper upside down with her wand tucked neatly behind her ears and wearing earrings in the shapes of the radishes. Blinking at the strange sight, Arielle sat opposite the girl and watched her for a few seconds before opening her own book (the Latin dictionary her uncle Remus gave her for her birthday) and started reading.

“You’re Arielle Potter,” she heard a dreamy voice announce and looked up to see the strange girl staring at her with her big silvery grey eyes. “Yes, I am,” Arielle replied blinking over at the girl. “And who are you?”

“I’m Luna Lovegood,” the girl replied, going back to read her newspaper which on a closer inspection was titled The Quibbler. Shrugging to herself, Arielle went back to read her Latin dictionary until it was time for her to go get changed into her school uniform and head down for breakfast.

The day that followed was one of the most adventurous days in Arielle’s life at Hogwarts, if you didn’t count the Philosopher Stone Escapade as it was called nowadays. First, when she entered the Great Hall for breakfast, she was mobbed by her friends (minus Blaise – it wouldn’t do him any good to be shunned by Slytherin for being friends with the Arielle Potter, would it) and the twins happily informed her that their little sister Ginny was sorted into Gryffindor at the sorting and when they finally said goodbye, leaving Arielle to go sit down at the Ravenclaw table, the strange girl called Luna sat down beside her. Arielle didn’t mind and soon they were engaged in a vivacious discussion about magical creatures – Luna telling her about the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks that she and her father went to search for during the summer before Luna came to Hogwarts. That was when things begun to go downhill. A snort behind her made Arielle aware of a presence that she found irritating – Hermione Granger of Gryffindor. The girl still didn’t forgive Arielle for being the best in the year last term instead of her and apparently she would try again this year. Arielle grinned to herself mentally as she turned her attention back on the plate in front of her, listening to Luna and Granger bicker about the existence of the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. Luna was telling Granger that they existed and Granger that they didn’t. Finally, Arielle had enough and snapped at Granger,

“Just because you didn’t read about them in your precious books, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

That shut the ‘insufferable know-it-all’ as Hermione Granger was dubbed, up alright and left her to leave for Gryffindor table all huffed up. Arielle sighed in relief as the girl disappeared and turned back to Luna who was watching her with a surprised look on her face… not that it was that strange to see her being surprised, her eyebrows were light and situated in the way that gave the other girl a permanently surprised look. “Don’t mind her,” Arielle mumbled as she went for a new piece of toast. “She doesn’t believe in anything other than what her books say.”

The other girl kept quiet, but Arielle knew that that was okay. And then her first day of classes came and with it Gilderoy Lockhart who was teaching them Defence Against the Dark Arts this year. It was also the same man that scared Arielle in Diagon Alley a few weeks ago. Instead of sitting in the front as was usual for her she went to sit as far back as was possible. Hermione Granger of course sat in the first row and Arielle could swear she heard the girl sigh dreamily when their professor entered the classroom, flashing them a smile.

“Greetings, ladies and gentlemen,” she heard him say from where she was putting her book on the table. She had read them all during the summer when they bought them and found them mighty strange. There were a few things that stood out in the books, like dates that didn’t really correspond with the stuff that he wrote and from what she had seen and read about him it was really strange that he could do all the stuff that he wrote about. Her thoughts were interrupted with him continuing on introducing himself – telling nothing about the creatures he claimed to have slain, but mostly telling them how he was a three-times winner of the Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile award. She sighed as she realised that they wouldn’t be learning anything useful in this class this year. It became even more apparent that this was the case when Lockhart gave them each a roll of parchment with a test on them… a test about himself. Arielle rolled her eyes and leaned back on her seat, not even thinking about writing anything in the test – it would only serve as an ego booster anyway.

At the end of the time allotted to the test, Lockhart went to collect the tests and of course it was Hermione Granger that won ten points for Gryffindor for being the only one to have a perfect score on the test. Arielle rolled her eyes at the girl and turned her head back to their professor when she heard him talking about them learning about fearsome creatures that turned out to be only Cornish Pixies. The mess begun when the stupid git actually opened the cage where the Pixies were kept and let them out to harass the students. Arielle quickly put things in her bag and slipped out of the classroom before the professor could notice her. She quickly made her way to the dungeons where their Potions lesson would start in a few minutes. Sadly, she wasn’t looking where she was going and bumped into someone tall. Looking up she grinned as she saw who it was.

“Uncle Moony!” she squealed as she hugged the Marauder around his waist. “Hey, little one,” her uncle replied, “what are you doing in the corridors while you still have a few minutes left of your first class of the year?” Arielle rolled her eyes and pouted up at him as she said, “The professor is stupid and I didn’t want to spend any more time in his presence for fear of catching the Stupiditus illness from him.” She giggled as a reply to her uncle’s laughter as they walked slowly towards the Potions classroom.

The rest of the day was spent avoiding the supercilious Slytherin by the name of Draco Malfoy after he branded her with the nickname of ‘coward’ when he heard about her sneaking out of the Defence Against the Dark Arts class and avoiding an egotistic professor that apparently had it in for her as he wanted to talk to her during their lunch time, before Herbology and even during dinner. It was only the glares of one Severus Snape that made him stop and spend the rest of the evening in his classroom – hiding from the Potions Master and curling his hair, no doubt.

When Arielle finally laid down in her bed that evening, she was so tired that she slipped into a deep sleep as soon as her head landed on her pillow.