Five hours later ....

"Final check," Eph ordered as the triplets rejoined in the basement.

Mac did a rapid pat check of the many knives she habitually carried, then shrugged into her three quarter length leather coat.

Jag rifled through the multiple inner pockets of her long greyed canvas duster that swept the ground around her feet before she nodded to the oldest sister.

Eph rolled her shoulders to confirm that the sharktooth sword inspired short-sword was securely in place, slung crosswise on her back.

They each took a step forward into the ritual circle and place the palms of their hands together before they began to chant. Their voices blended into a three toned harmony.

Mother Gaia, hear our plea.
Though Earth and Stone
We needs pass in thy Lea
To seek out our lost own
As we ask, it so mote it be.
As we will, it so mote it be.
As we beg it, so mote it be.

The earth seemed to swallow the trio of Witches wholely into the darkness.

******

I had been walking home from school when the first spell impacted with my shields. They shook some but were holding well enough.

I tossed aside my backpack and turned as I raised my hands to hurl magics of my own. The power was rising in me, making my blood heat in my veins, when multiple spells hit me at once.

Control escaped me and people screamed. One of them was me, I think. Then the world went grey, fading into black.

I came back to myself with a start, which surprised the woman hovering over me as much as her being there surprised me. People don't hover around me when I'm sick. For one thing it makes my magic go wonky, and for another I'm really nasty when I don't feel well.

Which means the poor dear when flying ass over tea kettle across the room.

"Madam Pomfrey, weren't you warned about that vicious little creature?"

Vicious little creature? Not that I'd deny it or anything, but nobody got away with calling me names except my sisters. I pushed up onto my elbows to glare at Mister Rude-Guy. "With that attitude you've got no business calling me a vicious little creature," I said, doing my best impression of Ephiney at her most outraged iciness. "And that Goth-looming thing you have going on? Needs work. I've seen scarier toddlers." I didn't bother to comment on the dress, after all Daddy had a ritual robe a lot like that for special occasions. Of course he'd never let anyone outside the Family see him in it.

The man in black glowered at me. I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him.

"Now, really, Professor," the woman said as she regained her balance, "I'm quite alright. And you're upsetting the poor child."

"He's a professor?" I yelped in shock. Yeah, I yelp. Sue me. "They let tall, dark and pissy around kids?"

"Ungreatful brat! You've no idea of the danger you were in," Professor Rude-Guy snapped in his clipped oh-so-precise accent.

"Danger?" I sneered. Sneering is one of the few things I do better than my sisters after all. "*I* wasn't one of the idiots doing unanchored, unshielded, spellwork that close to the Sleeping One! Do you have clue
fucking ONE what would have happened if you jackasses had disturbed Her? As it is you made my spell go freaking haywire and nearly got me very much -dead-! I -hate- being dead! It ruins an otherwise nice day!"

The professor and Madam Pomfrey stared at me and blinked. Hey, I have that effect on people.

******

I was introduced to the school the next morning. As an Exchange Student. And all the students and most of the professors actually bought it. How stupid are these people?

When the hat started to sing I wondered if I could get away with destroying it. It's a hat that sings, there's got to be something evil about that, right?

The tall woman who was introduced to be as Professor McGonagall motioned for me to come up to the stool and told me I needed to put the hat on.

"Fuck no," I said loudly enough to carry across the dinning hall.

Professor McGonagall looked like she was going to implode. "Miss Hunter, you will put on the Sorting Hat and be sorted into the propper house."

"Again. Fuck no. That thing sings. Off key, I might add. No way am I putting it on."

"Excuse me?" The Hat said. "But did you say Miss Hunter? Would that happen to be Miss Robin Hunter?"

McGonagall blinked. "Yes, she is."

The Hat screamed.

Everyone turned to stare at me. I shrugged. "I have that effect on people."

"SLYTHERIN!!" The Sorting Hat shrieked. Without being placed on my head.

"Well, that's unexpected," Snape said from the teachers' table. "I thought you were supposed to be one of those stupidly brave types that goes into Griffyndor."

"As if I give a flying rat's ass?" I snapped. "I don't *want* to be sorted into *any* house! I WANT TO GO HOME!"

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Miss Hunter," Professor Dumbledore said gently.

The gobblet in front of him exploded. "Make it possible."

He just smiled at her cheerfully. "But your sisters are already on their way here. I'd hate to disappoint them with your absence. Now, kindly take your seat."

"A muggle born in Slytherin?" whispered one of the girls at the table I was expected to sit at.

"Did you see what she just did?"

"And the Hat?"

"She looks like a Weasley."

I aimed a glare at the Slytherin table and waved my hand. All the gossips got their plates up-ended over their heads. "I'm not a Muggle-born, you ignorant little shit-bags."

"Twenty points from Slytherin!" Professor McGonagall said loudly.

The Slytherins turned deadly glares on me.

I stomped over to the table as well as someone my size can stomp. Okay, so I'm tiny. But dynamite isn't all that big either. "Let me make one thing crystal clear to you pissants, I am Robin Hunter. Daughter of the Hunter Line. Sister of the Nighthunters. In case you don't get what that means, I have enough power to turn all of you into small fluffy animals if I want to, or blast you into smoldering piles of ash. Any questions?"

"Will you marry me?" asked a blonde guy with cool silver eyes and a wicked grin.

"I'll think about it," I said with a smirk. I decided to sit next to him, glaring at the gorrilla next to him until the big idiot slid over.

A boy about my age with hair nearly as red as mine, although it shaded more toward orange, twisted around in his seat at the next table. I guessed he was one of the Weasleys some of the Slytherins thought I looked like. "I though you were a Nighthunter?"

I couldn't help smiling slightly at him. "Nope. Nighthunters are always triplets. I'm one of a kind."

The building trembled.

"Of course, you're about to see them in about ten seconds," I added as the hall was suddenly plunged into darkness.

The floor ripped itself open between the students' tables and the professors' table.

Three forms rose out of the fissure, glowing an angry acidic green. The floor resealed itself under their feet as they continued to hover for a moment.

"They're heeeeere!" I sang out rudely in imatation of that little blonde kid from the Poltergeist movies.

Three heads whipped around together to stare at me with eyes gone solid black.

"And have I mentioned that they're *really* pissed off?" I asked the school at large.

"No, you haven't mentioned that," commented the blonde boy I was sitting beside.

"It's the black eyes that really give it away, although the glowing green thing is a pretty big clue," I informed him cheerfully as my sisters settled back down onto the floor and the lights came back up.

Their glow faded but their eyes remained black, and when they spoke it was in an eirie three part harmony using what Grandma'am called Formal Mode. "Why hast Thou Wizards taken Our Own? Thou Court Our Wrath."

"A Dark Power seeks Your Own to use her power in his efforts to destroy the world of Muggles, Nighthunters," Dumbledore said quietly.

Mac broke Formal Mode when she burst out laughing. "Use *Robin*? No one *uses* *Robin*!"

"You idiots kidnapped her because of some moronic dark wizard?" Eph huffed. "Do you have any idea what the power of the Nighthunters could do to a dark wizard?"

"Fuck that," Jag blurted out. "Do you have any idea what *Robin* could do to a dark wizard? For that matter do you have clue fucking one *what* *she* *is*?"

"Professor Snipe, sorry, -Snape- called me a vicious little creature," I offered loudly.

Eph nodded sharply. "Good start on the idea. Robin is Chaos."

"You mean a Chaos Mage," corrected Professor Flickwick.

"No," Eph said icily. And damnit all I still couldn't quite match that tone. "I said exactly what I meant. She is the living mortal embodiment of Chaos itself."

I waved. "Hi!" Then I turned to the hottie blonde guy next to me. He looked ... well, Momma would have called it Gobsmacked, although I'd never seen that look in action before. "Still wanna marry me, blondie?"

That snapped my sisters' eyes back toward the Slytherin table in a hurry.

"What the bloody chainsaw-fucking thrice damned *HELL* are you talking about?" Mac demanded.

Snape's eyebrows shot up. "Well that certainly explains a few things."

He was generally ignored although Dumbledore snickered.

"I 'explained' who I was and asked if they had any questions," I shrugged. "Blondie here asked me to marry him. I said maybe."

Jag studied the blonde boy closely. "He's got balls at least. Knowing who she is if not what and still asking her to marry him right off the bat."

"Kid's power hungry, Rob's got power and then some," Eph observed.

Mac nodded. "But he ain't fucking stupid either. He believed her when she said she could barbque his ass six ways from Sunday."

"What's your name, boy?" Jag asked flatly as her blank black eyes locked on him.

"Malfoy, Draco Malfoy," said the blonde. To his credit he didn't squeak.

"Powerful family," Eph commented.

"Lot of Dark Wizards in that line," Mac mussed. Her eyes locked on Draco just as Jag's were, only rather than being blank the black orbs seemed to see right through him. "We've sure as all Nine Hells sent a fair fucking few of them to the Pits."

Draco paled but had yet to run screaming from the hall. Again, points in his favor.

Eph started to smirk as she, too, turned her black eyes on him. Unlike my other two sisters, one who seemed to see nothing, and the other who seemed to see through everything, Eph just saw *everything*. "The real question here is how does young Mister Malfoy feel about becoming related to Harry Potter?"

And the room exploded into chaos. And I say yummy! The power surge was such a rush that I accidentally turned the charmed ceiling of the Great Hall orange with fluffy purple clouds.

"SILENCE," Eph bellowed. She nodded toward me where I was giggling. "We're getting Robs a bit stoned."

Flickwick looked up at the ceiling. "Oh my heavens."

I snickered.

******

Once we were all settled in a private suite of rooms, Eph smacked Mac upside the head. "Stop watching all the pretty little treats, sis."

"Oh, like you weren't eyeballing the werewolf," Mac said, giving Eph a shove.

"Excuse me," I called out, "didn't you two noticed Jag giving Professor Rude-Guy the Want-Take-Have-*KEEP* looks?"

Jag just smiled innocently at all of us. "Bad boys can be such fun. I'm sure the future Mrs. Malfoy will discover that in time."

"I think I'll keep him chained up to my bed with shiny leather cuffs around his wrists and ankles," I muttered. "All that pale skin would be yummy against black silk sheets."

"ROBIN!" all three of them bellowed.

******

I was sent along to class with the rest of the Slytherins while my sisters were asked to join Dumbledore in his office. All the students were using wands. Pft. Professor McGonagall said that I could sit out until they were able to get me a wand.

I turned all the matches into tiny little dragons.

******

Professor Dumbledore greeted the triplets warmly when they entered his office. "Lemondrops?"

"No thanks," Eph said, falling into the roll of leader out of habit. Mac and Jag flanked her on either side, also out of habit. "What do you want?"

"Your help, of course," the old Wizard informed her. "Mister Fudge, the current Minister of Magic, wanted your younger sister killed or imprisoned in Azkaban. Neither option would be very wise. The former would put you at war with all the Wizarding community and the latter would simply make young
Robin more dangerous than she already is."

"She'd go completely bonkers instead of being only slightly mad," Jag concluded. "But ... Other than being bored out of her skull from being locked up, how would that drive her insane?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Azkaban is guarded by Dementors."

"But those are sixth circle demons!" Mac blurted. "Robs knows how to kill them, easy."

Dumbledore blinked. "But ... How?"

"Incineration, decaptiation, dismemberment," Eph listed calmly. "Of course, knowing Robin she'd simply open a hell-gate and send them into the pits."

"Open a ..." Dumbledore blinked again.

Mac nods. "She does that sometimes, when she's bored. She opens one up and takes a walk, torments a few demons, then comes home."

"That's three blinks," Jag observed. "I think we broke him."

"Maybe we can break that idiot Fudge too," Mac grumbled. "Smash him into little bits. Wanting our little bird dead. Pft. Rip the bastard's arms out and shove them both so far up his ass he can wave goodbye from his mouth."

"Now, my dear young lady, there's no need for such language," Dumbledore chided once he managed to speak at all.

Mac blinked and tilted her head to one side. "That was fucking *mild*, Professor."

"Mac, shut up," Eph said softlly. "Professor, with all due respect, why do you think we're going to help you after you had Robin kidnapped?"

"Because it's the right thing to do."

"Shit. He's got us," Jag muttered.

"Fuck," Mac mumbled repeatedly. She closed her eyes and dropped into a chair that had suddenly moved behind her. "Fuck," she said one more time for emphasis.

Eph sighed quietly. "What did you have in mind, Professor?"

******

My sisters were sitting at the teachers' table during lunch. I sighed.

"What's wrong?" Draco wondered as we sat down next to each other.

I eyed my sisters as one by one they smirked at me. "I get the most uncomfortable feeling that we're staying here for a while."

He smirked at me. "Would that be so bad?"

"That depends on whether or not they're going to let me chain you to my bed," I said clearly enough to make several students at the Gryffindor table choke. Several of the Slytherins did, too.

Draco glared at me. "Most people don't dare speak to me in such a manner."

"Most people can't throw a Mountain Troll through a wall with a dirty look either," I told him brightly.

At that several Slytherins scooted away from us.

"And Dumbledore thinks you need to be protected?" Draco muttered.

I shrugged. "I don't think he knew quite how much power I have."

"Do you think You-Know-Who does?" he asked softly.

"I don't think Voldemort has any idea what he's started by showing an interest in me," I said flatly. I ignored it when the students around me flinched.

"You're either very brave, or very stupid," Draco concluded.

"Neither," I chuckled. "I know exactly how powerful I am at this moment. I know exactly how powerful my sisters are, individually, in pairs, or altogether." I shrugged. "We've faced worse than some jumped up Dark Wizard with delusions of grandure."

"What's worse than Voldemort?" Draco demanded. Apparently having decided that if I was going to say the name so could he.

"Second circle hellbeasts," I deadpanned. "Idiot dabblers practicing too close to the Sleeping One without propper precautions. Reckless spell crafters not caring how close they are to Her. Rampaging vampires. Hellspawn trying to wake the Sleeping One. Black Sorcerers opening hellgates and setting demons loose. That's worse."

Draco stared at me. Hmm. I'd have to be careful or I'd break him before I really got to play with him.

I tilted my head to one side with a grin. "I guess you haven't taken a class on mystical convergences, power sites, ley lines, vortexes, and the lairs of proto-gods, huh?"

"Um. No."

"What a coincidence, I think that's about the only class Eph is qualified to teach," I said.

"I heard that!" Eph called from the table.

I grinned at her.