Don't own anything recognisable from JK Rowling's Harry Potter books.

(A/N Any part in Italics are flashback.) The Long Dead Past.

Chapter 1.

The Beginning.

It was a long journey by train to Hogwart's and Katrina Phaon, substitute History of Magic Professor while Sirius was on his honeymoon, wished that she had just apparated there.

"Every bump we go over is like going over a mountain on a spike." She muttered wryly to herself. "Why didn't I just get thrown off by that…"? She was lost for words. "Man." She ended her statement not as firmly as she would have hoped.

She remembered back when she climbed aboard the train.

"In the hours before I discovered what pain, and travel sickness was really like." She muttered.

 She had been disturbed to find a tall ugly, well she would like to say man confronting her.

"Ticket?" He had said rudely.

Shakily she had handed over the letter that Dumbledore had given her to help her get on the train.

"Ahhh!" He grinned widely; Katrina was not sure whether she preferred the grin or the scowl on his face. 

"You'll be taking over from Sirius then! Lovely couple him and Pat! On a years honeymoon to…" He stopped and scratched his head, and Katrina could have sworn that she saw a mouse fall from his big bushy hair. "Now, was it Europe or…" He muttered to himself for five minutes, running through all the countries of the world. "Never mind! I'm Hagrid!"

He had grasped her hand firmly and shook it.

"Keeper of the Grounds, and Professor. I teach Care of Magical Creatures." At this point he leaned in closer to her. "If at any point you need advice in teaching come to me! I'll help." Katrina resisted the urge to laugh in his face.

"You're lucky this year! I'm not usually here, see! Some of last years first years didn't know how to get through the barrier, or got muddled up when they did. I'm here to keep control."

A young boy and his bags crashed into a girl's luggage cart after running through a wall. "You'd better get aboard! We'll soon be there!"

When she had reached an empty compartment in the train, she had drawn all the blinds down, locked the door, and checked around to see if there was anything suspicious. Then finally after she was content with her safety she relaxed.

She had tried to read but the motion of the train just made her feel ill. Deciding that sleeping was a preferable activity to apparating a bowl and being violently sick, she quietly dozed off….

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"Fay! What are you doing?"

Fay Devlin looked up from the novel she was reading and could see her mother coming towards her.

"He'll be here soon, and what are you doing? Reading a bloody book again! Books won't get you far in this world! Look at the state of you. You're not even dressed!"

Fay looked at her mother. "I have no interest in becoming a brood mare for one of daddy's friends." She spat out the word Daddy in disgust, her eyes narrowed at the fourth glass of martini in her mother's hand.

"I'm warning you young lady, you had better be on your best behaviour for the party or else!" Delora Devlin opened the door banging it against the wall. "And you had better get ready! I bought you that red dress, so wear it!"

~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~

Katrina woke up suddenly; sweat running down her face as she recalled that night. Shakily she took her compact mirror out of her bag and checked her appearance. Her soft brown hair curled under just below her chin, the fringe that the Muggle hairdresser had said would be a good idea, was stuck to her forehead with sweat. She blinked and her vision swam.

"Stupid, bloody things." She muttered to her mirror as she took the solution out of her bag and carefully washed her blue tinted contact lenses. Putting them back in again would only harm her eyes, she decided as the stinging started to die down, so she dug in her bag again and took out the small rectangular tinted prescription glasses she had bought. They would hide her bright green eyes until she put the contacts back in again. Feeling adventurous she opened the blinds to the outside window a crack. A green and brown blur was all she was confronted with. Closing the blind she was surprised to find that the travel sickness had gone, replacing it was pangs of hunger. She looked in her bag, and was confronted with empty chocolate frog wrappers and an old carrot she had cut up as a snack. Wrinkling her nose in dismay she decided to find food elsewhere. She left her belongings in one of the cubbyholes above her head and, magically locking the cabin behind her, she headed in the direction she hoped the food would be.

"Watch out!" A small voice came from nowhere and a small girl crashed into Katrina as she was queuing for the food. A cheeky face looked up at her. It had ginger hair and freckles.

"Sorry about that! Thanks for catching me!" It grinned. "My brothers gave me this when we were on the platform!" He held up half a pink chewy sweet. "It makes you sprint around until you stop. You don't stop until you hit something! Lucky I didn't eat all of it!"

Katrina smiled back at her distantly as two boys and a girl hurried up.

"Ginny! How many times have I told you! Don't take anything Fred and George give you!" The boy who looked exactly the same as Ginny looked at Katrina. "New Professor?" He asked her.

"I'm Professor Phaon. I'll be teaching History of Magic while Professor Black is away."

"Pleased to meet you! I'm Ron Weasley and this is Ginny my little sister." He eyed the pink sweet in Ginny's hand. "You're lucky Siri… Professor Black decided to complete the rest of the term before leaving. It means you don't have to meet Fred and George our brothers, they left last year."

Katrina looked at the kids trying to gather the information being thrown at her in all directions. "Right. You're Ron, and this is Ginny." She turned to the other two. "And you are…?"

The boy turned to the girl questioningly and shrugged. The girl spoke up. "I'm Hermione Granger, and this is Harry. Harry Potter."

Katrina's face did not flicker. She turned her assessing gaze on the boy. She could just make out the lightning shaped scar below his messy hair, and she felt the urge to scratch her left elbow, instead she just folded her arms calmly.

'So this is the boy that everyone wants dead.' She thought to herself.

She smiled vacantly as she always did. "Nice to meet you. What kind of food do they serve here?"

~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~

"She didn't do a thing! Not a thing!" Harry was sat back in the cabin of the train after stuffing both his face and his pockets with sweets.

"What's wrong with that?" Small bits of chocolate flew out of Ron's mouth as he spoke, Hermione looked in a different direction in disgust so she wouldn't see the half chewed sweets in his full mouth.

"Well, nothing I suppose… Its just nobody else has reacted that way. Everyone either asks me a load of questions or they stare at me for ages." Harry opened another chocolate frog and groaned as another Merlin came out. "Anyone want this?"

Hermione shook her head at the card and protested at Harry's statement. "I didn't! I …" She stopped when she saw Harry's sceptical face. "Did I?"

Harry handed the card to Ron. "Yeah, you did. You asked me questions." He sighed.

"It can't be a bad thing that she didn't noticeably recognize you." Hermione tipped out her Bertie Bott's beans bag she had bought and picked out her favourites.

"No… I suppose not." Harry admitted reluctantly.

"Maybe she hasn't heard of you?" Ron looked up from counting his pile of sweets.

Harry and Hermione both looked at Ron, their faces both showing signs of disbelief and ridicule.

"Hasn't heard of him?" Hermione shrieked as Harry started pelting him with spinach-flavoured beans.

Ron backed off his hands up in defeat. "Okay! Okay! So she's probably heard of you!"

"Maybe I could check her background?" Hermione asked quietly. The walls at Hogwarts had ears and so did the train.

Ron and Harry looked at her in surprise.

"There's a spell I've been dying to use. Aurors use it all the time to do a background check on their suspects." She looked at Harry and Ron's unconvinced faces. "What? I found it in a book."

Ron looked at her in disgust. "Did you spend all of your holidays reading books?"

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