A/N:

Summery: Alex Taylor is eagerly going into her second year at Hogwarts, along with her best friend Ginny Weasley. With more secrets piling up, new magical discoveries, and an escaped convicted murderer seemingly after the Boy-Who-Lived, her tensions grow. No one seems to believe her claims that Sirius Black is innocent and now she finds herself taking care of a stray dog that is just another weight on her untold truths.

So, this is the next book of my Alex Taylor series and I hope you like it. If this is your first time reading, you should head over to my first story Why's It Gotta Be A Snake. If you don't feel like it, okay, do what you want.

I hope you like it guys; let me know in a review.

Man's Best Friend

Ch1

I stare wide-eyed at the bustling street and all the strange shops and people. They shuffle along bumping into others or dragging a reluctant child.

I have been on this muggle street many times before and seen the same things many times before, but every time I'm fascinated.

They all wear different kinds of clothes, all different colors and different types. Frilly, long, short, stiff, plain, loud, strange, unnoticeable.

None of them use magic or seem to even be aware that it exists. They carry or do things that can also be done with magic, but no wizard or witch would ever think to come up with something of the sort.

Muggles are fascinating. They don't need magic to live, unlike the most basic of witches.

But they dream of magic and monsters.

I turn on the sidewalk and walk into one of the small shops. It's small and smells of dust, but it has the most fascinating things.

Lying across some shelves are mini statues of unicorns and dragons and fairies, though those don't look much like the actual fairy.

I run my fingers over the dusty spines of books and over other old looking things.

"Can I help you?" an old man asks, appearing around a shelf with round spectacles perched on his long nose.

"No thank you," I reply. "I'm just looking."

He gives a little dip of his head and disappears again around the rack, fiddling with an old rag. The lowering sun casts an orange glow around the shop, lighting up tiny dust particles floating in the air.

I make my way back out to the busy streets and the long walk back home.

The sky is completely dark by the time the manner comes into view and I stumble tiredly up the stone steps.

I wince as the large oak door creeks as I push it open and wait stiffly for any other noise.

I squeeze my body through the small crack in the main door and pull off my shoes so I can walk more softly through the stone halls.

A light overhead snaps on, the chandelier swinging menacingly from the ceiling.

My father stands at the foot of the stairs with a fierce expression, his blue eyes cold and almost turned black.

"Where have you been?" He demands, fists clenching at his sides.

"N-nowhere. Just around the castle!" My hands tighten around the straps hanging from my shoulder, trembling.

His eyes dart to my bag and he rips it from my arms, sending the contents to the ground.

Muggle things spill to the chilly stone, clattering and echoing around the hollow room.

"You've been to the muggle world." He says dangerously, eyes shooting icy flames and I stumble back as he strides forward.

"How many times have I told you not to go there and how many times have you disobeyed me!"

A sting in my cheek has me sprawling to the ground, hands slapping to catch myself.

Tears prick in an involuntary reaction but I quickly blink them away. My jaw aches and the taste of copper teases my tongue.

My cheek had split from his powerful blow and my head spins.

"I'm sorry!" I gasp, cradling my flaming face.

"If you were, you wouldn't continue to sneak out; I ought to send you to live with the Muggles if you love them so much. You and that disgraceful rat of a cat!" He shouts, referring to my tiny grey tabby cat, Astrid, who I had gotten last year right before school started.

Just being a little bigger than my hand, she had barely grown at all since I had first bought her at the wizardry pet store, Magical Menagerie.

She was a runt little thing there, hastily looked over, like me, and instead of getting an honorable eagle-owl like my father was expecting me to, I got her- the one everyone thought that wouldn't last.

I named her Astrid, Norse for divine strength.

He was not pleased when I returned home after the school year, with the tiny she cat. However upset he was about Astrid though, was diminished some to learn that I had indeed been put into the Slytherin House like all the fathers and mothers before him, leading all the way back to when Hogwarts was first formed by its founders.

But what I didn't tell him is that the Sorting Hat originally wanted to put me in Gryffindor, the house my mother was in, but I had begged the magic hat to put me in my father's House.

It was through that strange year of people being petrified and investigation of the Chamber of Secrets that I learned the Heir of Slytherin's true identity.

It was Tom Riddle, who's memory was infused in a diary fifty years ago, and was put in my best friend's cauldron for her to write in.

The diary started taking over her soul and controlling her into opening the Chamber.

Me and my other friends, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, stopped Tom Riddle and found out that he is Lord Voldemort before he became one of the most powerful Dark wizards in history.

To me, he is also known as Grandfather.

But only Professor Dumbledore and I know this little fact, and I plan on never telling, especially to Harry whose parents were killed by him.

"I'm sorry." I repeat to my father, hoping that my punishment would be over sooner than usual; I want to see if I had gotten any word on Harry, who had run away after blowing up his aunt.

Well, inflated her. Not like- splat, auntie chunks are everywhere.

My dad's face twists and his foot snaps out, kicking me in the stomach and making me gag and choke.

I can't wait to go back to Hogwarts and only have to deal with Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy's beatings.

My father storms away, wizard robes swishing behind him.

I could probably go forever without him laying a hand on me, if I would just do what he says.

Don't leave the mansion, don't talk to the house elves unless giving them a command, don't go into his study, don't go into the kitchen.

But all these things I have done and refuse to stop doing.

Maybe I like defying him or maybe I'm just a masochist.

There is a snap, like a whip cracking against a horse's flank, and a small brown wrinkly hand touches my shoulder.

"Miss Alex," the high squeaky voice of a house elf says. "You should listen to your father, or he continues to hurt you."

"I'm okay, Lena." I tell the small elf, sitting up with strained difficulty, coughing. "You shouldn't be helping me, he'll punish you if he sees."

"Then he punishes me. Miss Alex needs help."

I sigh as she helps me to my feet the best she can. I try very hard to put as little weight as I can on her small frame.

"Thank you Lena."

She guides me up the stairs, through halls where the ground turns to thick plush carpet, and to my room.

I had chosen the smallest room in the house, but it still stands far to big and open spaced.

I wince falling onto the bed, carful to miss my kitty curled up in the middle.

"Miss Alex needs to stay here. I will get you ice."

I close my eyes as she pops out of the room with a crack, and I feel suddenly drowsy with the familiar smell of my room wafting around me.