With a loud cracking sound, I was almost knocked off my feet as we arrived in a small, darkened village. The world was still spinning, bile rising up in my throat. I barely lasted a couple minutes before I was sick into somebody's bush.

When the world decided to stay horizontal again, I chewed on a chewing gum to get rid of the disgusting taste, re-joining Dumbledore. "What the hell was that?" I asked. "I would much rather take the train ride to get here next time, thank you."

"That was apparating. In a few years you may want to learn it. It's very useful when in a rush." Dumbledore said. He glanced just ahead of him. "Ah yes, Remus and Genesis are in, that's good."

I followed Dumbledore up broken concrete path to a small, neglected cottage with broken roof tiles and overgrown grass. Hesitantly I hovered behind Dumbledore as he rang the doorbell, which made a sound like a barn owl.

A shadow appeared in the stained glass door window, and then the click of a lock was audibly heard. Then the door was opened, to reveal a girl of about my age. I assumed she was Genesis.

Genesis had long blonde hair streaked with pink and blue, it's large texture making it look like she had a mane. Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown, though she looked tired with visible purple bags under them. But she put on a tired smile, folding her arms over a faded GAP hoodie.

"Evening, Professor." She smiled. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Aurora," Dumbledore said, gesturing to me as I gave her a little hesitant wave. "I believe your father has mentioned her before."

Genesis's eyes widened as she took in my appearance, especially my eyes, before mumbling, "Oh, well you'd best better come in. Dad and I were just watching a video."

Dumbledore and I entered the house, which smelled faintly of wet dog and damp. I felt almost intimidated following my so-called godsister, especially since all the photos lining the hall were moving.

"You'll get used to them moving, it's like those GIF things muggles have." She shrugged, noticing my staring. "Come on in."

We followed her through a door with the hinges falling off, depositing my suitcase by the door. The living room was small and cluttered, large over-stuffed bookcases taking up most of the room. A small television was playing some comedy, the on-screen laughter compensating for the awkward silence.

A man was sat on a sofa, and looked up as we entered. "Gennie, who- Oh my god..."

"I know." Genesis said grimly to her dad. "I think Dumbledore found her, dad."

"Hi," I said shyly, scratching at my hand from nerves.

My godfather stood up in shock at the sight of me, and startlingly, he looked familiar. His face was covered in faded scars, skin sickly pale. He looked really old as well, greying hair and dark circles under his eyes, even though he was probably only mid-thirties.

"Dumbledore... What... Why?" Remus spluttered. "I don't understand. Who are you, girl?"

"Um, I'm Aurora Oswin." I squeaked. "And I got a Hogwarts letter this morning."

With the silence over-bearing in the room I pulled out the letter and passed it to him. He read the letter over a few times, his eyes pausing on the first sentence. He looked up, astonished. "It's really you... after all this time, I... I'd given up hope."

"After I found out my parents were dead, I... I thought I didn't have anybody left apart from my brother." I said in a small voice, tears budding in my eyes. "But now I have two people."

"Yes, you have us, so don't cry." Remus said sternly, placing a hand on my shoulder. "You... You look a lot like your mother."

"Really, I do?" I said, happiness swelling up inside of me.

"How come you haven't been at Hogwarts then?" Genesis asked, almost suspicious. "I'm a third year, proud Gryffindor."

"What the hell is a Gryffindor?" I spluttered.

"You have a lot to learn, young one." Genesis grinned, and I couldn't help already feel comfortable around her. She seemed to take it in her stride I didn't know anything, and wasn't judging me for it.

I looked away from her to see Remus glaring at Dumbledore. Genesis looked at me and raised her eyebrows. "Why don't I show you around, yeah? Leave the old guys to talk."

"I'm only thirty three, cheeky." Remus shook his head. "I'll bring you up some tea later, alright?"

"Let's go, new friend." Genesis said happily, grabbing my wrist and leading me out of the room, shutting the door behind me. "You want me to carry that?"

"It's okay, Genesis, I over-packed, I should deal with it." I smiled.

"Ugh, please don't call me Genesis, I hate that name. Call me Gennie." she shuddered. "Why my mum picked it, I'll never know. Follow me, Aurora."

"I'll call you Gennie if you call me Rory," I said. "Looks like both of our parents liked fancy names."

"I know, right!" Gennie exclaimed, starting to bound up a flight of stairs, helping me with the suitcase. "I mean, Genesis is the name of the first book in the Bible. And my parents weren't even religious, so what was the point?"

"I've always thought that about my name, I mean it means 'Dawn'. Couldn't I have been called that instead?"

"Dawn Potter, it has a nice ring to it." Gennie mused, before looking horrified. "Sorry, I mean you're probably not comfortable with your real surname yet, sorry."

"It's fine, I'll get used to it soon enough." I shrugged, as we finally made it up onto the first floor.

We approached a door covered in stickers from kid magazines with 'GENNIE'S ROOM-KEEP OUT LOSERS' written in rainbow letters. Gennie shouldered the door open, and I followed her inside, Minnie following..

It was a really small room, but seemed cosy. The walls were covered in Disney posters and a couple bands I'd heard of, and one called 'The Weird Sisters' which I guess was a wizard band. There was also a couple posters of people on brooms, which confused me.

The half broken bed had fairy lights hung around it, dream catchers hanging off a small bookshelf attached to the wall.

"Do you have a lot of bad dreams?" I asked curiously. There were at least three of them hanging up I could see.

Gennie went paler and mumbled, "Yes. mydadisawerewolfanditscaresmewhenhesinwolfform."

"What?" I said. "I only heard mumbling after the word yes." I said curiously.

Gennie took a deep breath. "My Dad is a werewolf. It scares me when he's a wolf. I can only just control him. Sorry, I know that was a lot... Nobody knows apart from Dumbledore and me..."

My mouth dropped open in shock. That kind man downstairs was a werewolf? And Gennie was half-werewolf?

"Werewolves exist?" was the first thought that came to mind. "What else exists?"

"Aren't you going to be disgusted and think we're monsters?" Gennie said confused. "Ah, of course, brought up by muggles, you wouldn't have inherited bigotry.... Uh, well vampires, unicorns, mermaids and centaurs are real."

"Wicked," I said, leaning back on Gennie's bed next to her. "My little sister loves unicorns. So, uh how do you control a fully grown werewolf?"

"I can turn into a wolf!" Gennie said brightly.

"Werewolves and vampires I can believe, you shapeshifting, no."

Gennie rolled her eyes and looked as if she was concentrating hard, before with a faint pop she turned into a wolf. I spluttered in amazement at the sandy coated wolf next to me, swearing under my breathe.

Without another pop, Gennie reappeared on the bed. "Cool, huh? It took me nearly two years to learn how to do that."

"Wow." I muttered. "This is getting more surreal than I thought."

"Don't worry, honestly, you'll get used to it. Harry and Hermione have."

I almost squealed out loud, but restrained myself. "So, uh, you know my brother?" I asked casually.

Gennie nodded, shyly, her boldness gone, cheeks pink. "He's my best friend."

Smirking to myself, I knew exactly what was going on. Kayley had pointed out these features to me when I was crushing on Laurence, and when she was crushing on Yvonne Zang in the spring.

"You fancy him, don't you, Gennie?" I said playfully, poking her shoulder.

"Ugh, fine! Yes, I do!" Gennie said flushing red. "Am I that obvious? Hermione guessed straight away as well!"

"I knew because I acted like that over my ex-boyfriend, wish I hadn't now though." I grumbled.

"Ooh, drama in the newly discovered Aurora Oswin-Potter's life!" Gennie gasped, rolling over and putting her head in her hands. "Do share?"

"We dated for a couple months, but I had a crush on him for way longer than that. He broke up with me last Christmas, turns out he used me to get to this girl I despise." I said bitterly, though still astounded that it was only a few hours ago I set Adeline on fire.

I wondered how much of her hair was missing.

"Who's Hermione?" I asked. "Dumbledore said she'll help me catch up."

Gennie grinned. "No surprises there. She's the top in the year, and my best friend. We met on the train to Hogwarts, and eventually became friends with Ron, and Harry."

"You've got a little group going on there, who's Ron?"

"He's my other best friend, though we piss each off on purpose a lot. He and Hermione argue all the time, but it's kind of cute because it's obvious they'll be dating in a few years. So while they argue and Harry broods about death and quests, I end up being the optimism in the friendship group."

"What's my brother like?" I wondered.

"He's wonderful!" Gennie exclaimed, looking dreamily off into the distance. "He's selfless, sarcastic, brave, and he has this little cute laugh... I'll shut up, this is getting weird now. Come on, help me get your camp bed out."

So I helped find a camp bed in the attic (which was accessible through Gennie's room, which was awesome) and as we were setting up, Gennie explained to me a house structure in the school. Already I could tell that Gryffindor was where I wanted to be and that Slytherin consisted of the bad guys-if that was true was another thing.

"Wow, I can't wait to go there." I said, as I unpacked my clothes into drawers Gennie let me use. "I bet it's so much fun..."

Gennie went quiet, casually rubbing her thumb over her Rapunzel doll. "Not always. There's a curse on the defence class teachers... In first year our teacher was killed, and the one last year lost his memory. And there's always some sort of crazy adventure Harry pulls us into..."

"Wow, like what?" I giggled, imagining Harry being some sort of wizard equivalent of Bilbo Baggins.

"First year there was this Philosopher's Stone thing we had to rescue, and it turned out our defence teacher had You-know-Who on the back of his head... scary stuff. And last year... um..."

Gennie turned away from me, tears in her eyes. "It was all my fault, let's leave it at that."

"No, please tell me." I said, hopping up onto her bed, awkwardly patting her arm. "We're practically related now, and I'm sure we're going to be best friends. We need to tell each other things."

"It... It was my entire fault, and it was all because I was petty." Gennie snorted. "Well Ron's little sister, Ginny, has a huge crush on Harry too. And I was really mad at her, so I stole her diary when I was over their house last summer... I thought I could tell Harry some embarrassing things about her."

"Right," I said, not seeing where this was going.

"But it wasn't a proper diary. There was no writing, and when I did write, somebody called Tom wrote back to me... He was really nice, and understood all I was going through. But then, everything went weird. I was finding blood on my hands and losing my memory. It turns out that I was being possessed by Tom."

"Holy crap," I breathed out. "Sounds like a horror movie."

Gennie laughed once, a bitter sound. "I know, right? But he made me open this chamber with a giant snake, so it could petrify people without magical parents-muggle borns. And a few people got petrified, Hermione included. I hated myself so much for that."

"Gennie, it wasn't your fault...." I trailed off. "Like in the horror movies, nobody blames the possessed person, you shouldn't blame yourself."

"She's fine now; I just keep going back to it, thinking she could have died because of me..." Gennie continued. "But anyway, Tom almost killed me, trying to take over my body for good. If it wasn't for your brother, I might be dead or worse now..."

"Well I'm glad you're not." I said, trying to be upbeat. "You seem pretty awesome, and pretty awesome people should not die young. I think we're pretty much friends at this point."

Gennie laughed to herself. "Apparently, when we were babies we played together all the time. Finger painting and wrestling each other... So I suppose we've always been friends, we've just taken our time to find each other."

"I wish I could even have a faint memory of that." I said, wistfully. "The only thing I remember about my family is the dreams I have of green light and my dead mother... And of Harry, I think. He was with a man in a purple turban."

"Ah, that was Quirrel, the front half of the head." Gennie said, nodding her head. "But don't worry, you might have lost those memories, but you can make new ones, now."

"I HAD A RIGHT TO KNOW!" Remus yelled from downstairs, and Gennie jumped slightly.

Raising a finger to her lips, she gestured for me to follow. We stuck our heads out of the door, listening as Dumbledore and Remus argued on.

"I'm her godfather; I had the right to know she was alive!" Remus hissed, I could barely hear him. "And you give her to Mark Oswin of all people. You know-"

"I know that was what Lily and James wanted, and I lived up to their wishes." Dumbledore said calmly.

"Yeah, well they were wrong!" Remus shouted. "They didn't tell her anything! If you'd given her to me, she would have known everything from the second she could understand me! And don't tell me, Albus, you're planning on keeping Harry in the dark too?!"

As their voices went down into a whisper and the kitchen door slammed, Gennie slowly shut the door behind us. "Well I don't know about you, but he has a right to know."

"We should phone him." I said, though the thought of speaking to my brother was nerve-racking.

"I value my life, thanks!" Gennie grimaced. "I phoned him the other week, and his Uncle-well he's yours too-yelled at me and wouldn't give him the phone! We're safer just sending a letter."

Gennie whistled, and from the attic door from above, an owl flew down, a tawny one with big amber eyes. "This is Oakley. Don't look so shocked, this is how we sent post to each other."

Oakley flew onto my shoulder and I petted its wings as Gennie scribbled something down with a biro pen. "Right, this sounds okay, doesn't it?"

Dear Harry,

Good to hear you like you mp3 player, I thought it could block out the muggles! Anyway, in other news, I have a visitor staying at my house I think you'll like. And before you ask, no, I'm not trying to set you up on a date. If we meet up before term starts back, I'll introduce you!

Lots of love,

Gennie

"It sounds good," I said, passing her the paper.

"If I said you were his sister, he'd have a heart attack." Gennie explained, tying the letter to the owl's leg. "He found out in first year about you being 'dead' and he was really shook up by it. He still is now. He's even mourned for you."

"It's sad. If Mark and Jenna had told me he existed, I would have met him years ago..." I sighed, feeling almost hate for my adoptive parents, for keeping me in the dark for so long. "I-I just-" I cut off with a yawn.

"I think it's time we both go to sleep." Gennie said sternly, pulling her flowery curtains across after she sent Oakley away.

"No!" I exclaimed. "I have so many more questions!"

"We have the rest of August for that, silly." Gennie rolled her eyes.

Within ten minutes I was in my cookie monster pyjamas cuddled up next to Minnie under unfamiliar sheets, feeling at ease.

"Goodnight, Rory." Gennie said, turning off the main light, leaving only the faint glow of fairy lights.

"Goodnight, Gennie." I responded, my eyes feeling heavy.

Today had been the longest day in history. Only this morning I was content with life, imagining trips to art galleries with Kayley, and groaning about the imminent start of Year Nine.

And now, in less than twenty four hours, I had been given a whole new life, that I couldn't wait to discover.

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A/N I know the names Gennie and Ginny sound very familiar, but I only reliased this after I'd started the story. Ginny is still in the story, and Gennie is not replacing her-they just have the common idea of being in love with Harry.