The Dark Lords Daughter *completed*

Late night Messages

Hagrid and I returned to to the Great Hall and I quickly walked back down the aisle towards my seat, when I was stopped by an arm positioned in front of me. I stopped quickly so not to run into it and looked to it's owner, my heart fluttered when my eyes met the warm brown ones of Oliver Wood. He was smiling at me,

"Congratulations for making Griffindor," he said, his strange accent causing my throat to close, "I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other after all." I smiled shyly.

"I guess so." I replied, I offered one last smile before stepping round his arm and continuing down to my friends. I couldn't help but look back at the older boy and found him watching my retreating form, I blushed and took my seat,

"What did Wood want?" Percy asked, his eyes travelling up the table watching his fellow housemate carefully.

"Oh," I stammered, everyone's eyes trained on me, "He was just welcoming me to Griffindor," I smiled, as it was technically true. Harry then turned to me,

"Where did you disappear to?" He asked his brows knitting together.

"Hagrid took me to see Grace." I replied, Ron suddenly banged the table.

"Oh yeah, full of surprises this one," he announced to our group, gesturing to me.

"I sit for bloody hours on the train with her and she never thinks to mention that a few carriages down, she got a bloody great beast travelling with us." This caught everyone's attention.

"When exactly were you going to tell us that you brought a horse with you?" Ron continued, I shrank away from the interrogating eyes of my peers.

"It never came up?" I offered feebly, shrugging my shoulders.

"That's against School rules to bring any animal that is not listed, I'm surprised it was allowed." Hermione pointed out, her know-it-all-ism beginning to set me on edge.

"Well it was I was either allowed to bring her, or I wasn't coming." I replied shortly. I watched as her eyes widened in shock at my tempered reaction. And I slumped further into myself. Harry placed a reassuring hand on my back and I glanced at him. His kind expression relaxing me and I allowed my lips to twitch into a responding smile. Over the table I watched as Ron went to grab another chicken wing when he yelped in fright. I sat up to investigate and my eyes widened. From the centre of the plate floated a mans head, he beamed at our group before turning to Ron,

"Hello!" He said cheerfully, before turning towards Harry and me.

"How are you? Welcome to Griffindor." I watched in amazement as the grey opaque man rose from the table and over Ron's head. All around the room gasps of shock and laughed of amusement filled the air, as numerous ghost filed into the hall. I turned to Percy as he began to converse with the ghost who had welcomed us.

"Hello Sir Nicholas, have nice summer?" He asked politely.

"Dismal." The ghost replied, "Once again, my request to join the headless hunt has been denied." I watched in confusion as Sir Nicholas began to float away.

"Hey I know you! You Nearly Headless Nick!" Ron exclaimed his eyes full of expectation. The well dress ghost turn back to him, his expression slightly disgruntled.

"I prefer Sir Nicholas, if you don't mind." He scowled at Ron, I giggled at the red-heads apologetic face. When Hermione's curiosity got the better of her.

"Nearly headless? How could you be nearly headless?" She asked raising her eyesbrow.

"Like this." The ghost's hand came up to grasp the curled white hair onto of his head and with a quick tug lifted his head off of his neck. Leaning forward he showed us how his head was held on by a single thread of skin. I grimaced at the gory scene, I watched Harry and Hermione flinch away, as Ron cried out in shock. Sir Nicholas decided then to take his leave and floated smugly over to the next table.