Arielle: The Girl Who Changed

Chapter 11

It was the last day of summer before the first semester of her third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Arielle was staying in a room at the Leaky Cauldron with Ginny Weasley. In the month previous, Arielle had stayed with her godmother Nymphadora Tonks while the Weasley family was in Egypt.

Arielle had gotten to know Tonks better and was informed that they've all had eyes on Lucius Malfoy ever since Arielle told her what she suspected. She had said that there wasn't any evidence that Malfoy had done the killing because he could have, if anything, been under the Imperious Curse like he had been in the first Wizarding War, or so he claimed.

In the early days of August of 1993, there was a breakout from the wizard prison Azkaban. The man called Sirius Black had escaped and was on the run, Tonks had mentioned before years ago that he was her cousin. He was a member of the original Order of the Phoenix when Arielle's parents had just joined. He had been convicted and thrown into Azkaban for the murder of 13 people, Arielle and her parents had always said he was wrongly convicted, he couldn't have murdered all those people. They had always said that he was way too nice and caring to do it, even after his best friend and his wife James and Lily Potter were killed by You-Know-Who. Everyone said he had sold out the Potters to You-Know-Who because he was an undercover Death Eater, but Arielle and her parents believed that he would never do that, so Arielle was actually kind of happy that he had escaped.

Everyone was on their guard and scared of the 'wanted' posters hanging up all over the place with the picture portraying Black as a madman, laughing. Arielle hated seeing a man her parents called a friend being portrayed in such a way.

When they had arrived the day before, Arielle greeted Harry Potter with a hug, "How've you been Arielle? Holding up well?" He asked referring to Arielle's parents.

"I'm doing great now, how were things where you were?" Arielle asked him knowing he hated being with his aunt, uncle and cousin.

"Oh it was fantastic," Harry laughed, "Accidently blew a family member up like a balloon, thought I was going to be expelled."

"Well I'm glad you didn't, I might need a little extra Malfoy protection this year," Arielle laughed.

Soon, the Weasleys, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Arielle Kingsford all went to Diagon Alley to go school shopping. This was the first year they got to choose some of their classes such as what Arielle chose, Care of Magical Creatures, Muggle Studies, and Ancient Runes.

As they all got to the book store, there was a cage full of books that had teeth and were biting at the air and each other. The owner of the store came over to them with a big stick in his hand, "Looking for the Monster Book of Monsters?" He panted.

They nodded and he quickly got the needed amount of copies and had them all tied up so they wouldn't hurt any of them, "To calm them and make them readable, make sure to stroke the spine of the book." Hermione and Arielle nodded, Ron and Harry hadn't been paying attention.

They all got the rest of the books they needed including one new Defense Against the Dark Arts book, a new spell book, and an advanced transfiguration book. Arielle had been running low on money after the purchases, and asked Mrs. Weasley if she could go to the Wizarding bank Gringotts.

Mrs. Weasley had said yes and then took off walking swiftly with Arielle to the bank, not stopping to talk with anyone. When they were in the beautiful bank, Mrs. Weasley said, "Sorry about the rush Arielle, just...can never risk anything around here now days."

"It's fine, I just...don't really see the danger, but that's just me."

"Oh Arielle, you always have been one to stick to what you believe in," Mrs. Weasley laughed.