Chapter Text
The pen was scratchy and leaked dark ink, staining her fingertips. The school didn’t give them many art supplies to work with – the paper was thin and fragile, the graphite pencils brittle and scored with teeth marks.
It was a dull day, made worse by the stifling weather. The air was heavy with the stirrings of a storm. Birds shrieked from the branches of an ancient tree outside, their muted plumages phasing in and out of the leaves as they clawed and flapped and snapped. Clara looked down at her drawing, and tried to see herself in the unskilled lines and ink blots.
It was probably her surroundings itself that hampered her efforts. Nowhere in the Asylum was particularly pretty – it had been a boarding school for wealthy girls before it was bombed to bits in World War II, and when they reconstructed it as an orphanage amid the aftermath of the war there wasn’t any room for beauty in mind. It was a clutter of red brick ,creaking staircases, and whitewashed walls, the grass in the backyard growing waist-high in winter where the rain blew through cracks in the window sashes and pooled on the floorboards of emptied rooms.
Her own room was furnished with only pieces the Matron had thought necessary – a bed, a wardrobe, and a small writing desk where she read and did schoolwork. All the other furniture had been sold off, and the money had gone straight to the Matron’s pockets.
Clara made her peace with the Matron’s heavy hand and terrible taste in clothes for the girls the week she arrived. At least she was alive. At least she wasn’t a slave to her aunt and uncle anymore.
Now, it was getting a little harder to maintain that peace.
It was just as well that she learned three lessons through her time at the asylum – that she is, by all standards, abnormal, that abnormal people inspire fear in normal people, and that fear is a very good motivator. Incidents happened to those who antagonised her. Fractured bones, close-calls with snakes in the backyard and cars on the road, days of misfortune after misfortune until they finally cracked and told the Matron and Clara was made to apologise and recite verses.
Her own injuries and bruises from these altercations always disappeared back into unblemished skin, and the other girls were too scared of her to comment on it. Clara learned to accept that she was alone, that there would be no one to save her, and all she could do was save herself. She owned nothing but her name. Her birthday was lost somewhere in the Matron’s filing cabinet, all her worldly possessions left back in the cupboard under the stairs.
She looked at the drawing again, eyed the marks she thought had made up her face.
It fluttered as it fell out the window, borne aloft by the wind.
---
Clara Potter, a summary
She could not be described as pretty, but nor could she be described as unattractive.
There was an intensity about her that drew you in like a moth to flame, only tempered by a face that was all sharp lines and harsh angles. Her eyes were too big for her face, too vibrantly green in a way that made you uneasy. The thing that kept people away most of all was the silvery scar on her forehead, trailing tidily down to her cheekbone.
What sort of accident could possibly have given you a scar like that? they asked, and Clara for all her reading couldn’t answer.
---
The next day she woke up with a strange feeling prickling the back of her neck, like something was decidedly off. It followed her as she dressed and washed up, and just in case it was an important day, she checked the date but there was nothing marked down on the calendar. She examined her uniform to make sure there was nothing the Matron could pick on, and left the room.
It followed her through breakfast, where upon her arrival in the dining hall she was immediately accosted by Magriet Livington, who had declared war on Clara the day they met.
“How is our resident monster doing?” she asked snidely as she passed her. Clara kept her lips sealed and buttered her toast as quickly as possible.
Magriet was quite possibly the only girl in the asylum who continued to antagonise her without fear of retribution. She was the apple of the Matron’s eye and the prettiest out of all of them, so any wrong move on Clara’s part would send the full force of the Matron’s wrath down on her.
---
Magriet Livington, a summary
She had long, shiny, butter-coloured hair that gleamed gold in the sunlight, and long-lashed eyes exactly a shade darker. Her skin was the colour of cream and just as smooth, her hands delicate with fingernails like pale rose petals.
Her parents, she told everyone, were in a land far away. She couldn’t quite decide if they were in Peru or Persia or Palau, but whatever they were doing at the moment, she was convinced that they were coming back to collect their darling daughter and spirit her away on one of their adventures. She kept a calendar by her bed that she crossed off each morning, a day closer to meeting the parents she had never met.
Her hatred for Clara was a vicious, petty thing. Clara Potter was unsympathetic and mysterious and a freak, but there was also something about her that she couldn’t put her finger on. When asked by the other girls why she hated her so much, Magriet could not give a definitive answer.
---
Dissatisfied with being ignored, Magriet leaned in close and whispered, “The Matron knows you took that pot of jam from the kitchens.” She flicked her hair back, and it caught the sunlight. “Enjoy your room while you still have it.”
Clara said nothing and stepped neatly around her, continuing down the hallway to her room. There, she closed the door with a roll of her eyes, turned around, and nearly dropped her toast on the ground.
A dark-feathered owl gazed back at her from outside the window with round, reproachful yellow eyes. It tapped on the glass impatiently, and as if on autopilot Clara crossed the room and hurriedly opened the window. It immediately hopped inside onto the desk and clicked its beak.
The feeling that had followed her since morning culminated in that instant as she looked down and saw a thick envelope tied to its leg. She tore off a piece of crust and fed it to the owl before untying the letter and examining it closely.
It was made out of some cream-coloured, heavy material. If she had to guess, it was probably parchment. She touched the red wax seal on the front. She could make out some animals in a fancy crest, some Latin words emblazoned below.
On the front, in flowing script, read:
Clara L. Potter
Sixth Bedroom
End of Second-Floor Corridor
The Asylum
She drew in a sharp breath. It was too precise. A heavy feeling of trepidation settling in her chest, she made up her mind and broke the seal, tipping out the letter inside. There was the same crest printed in thick black ink at the top, followed by some Headmaster’s name and his long list of titles, all of which were strangely unfamiliar.
She dropped her gaze further down the page.
Dear Miss Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1st of September. We await your owl by no later than 31st July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
She stared down at the letter, considering her sanity. It couldn’t be a joke played on her - Magriet Livington was too foolish to ever come up with such a prank. As far as she knew, the girl had no ability to talk to owls, as Clara could with the garden snakes.
But it made sense, it fit together so terribly. All the incidents they had brushed off as freak accidents. The strange things that happened around her. If this letter was genuine and not a hoax, it meant-
There was a school out there that taught magic.
She gazed at the letter, drinking in every word in rapture before reality slammed back into her again and she shoved the rest of her toast in her mouth, immediately sitting down and picking up her pen to write a letter back. The owl was still sitting docilely on the desk, blinking slowly at her.
Dear Deputy Headmistress,
I would be delighted to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Unfortunately, I believe there have been some issues overlooked in your letter.
First and foremost, I have little to no information on the whereabouts of this school, and I have not a penny to my name to buy any books or equipment. I would greatly appreciate it if you sent someone who could show me where to get supplies and advise me on how to get to the campus.
Sincerely,
Clara L. Potter
She signed her name with a sense of finality, the handwriting straightening almost imperceptibly. She had never known her last name, but seeing it next to Clara was strangely fitting. Idly, she wondered what the L stood for as she gently tied the letter back onto the owl’s leg and watched as it clacked its beak and flew back out into the silvery sky.
The next day, she was woken up by stomping on the landing outside her room and heavy rapping on her door.
“Matron says there’s a woman in the foyer waiting for you,” Magriet called surlily from outside. When Clara opened the door, the other girl was already halfway down the stairs. “I don’t expect her to take you, of course. Who would want you?”
Images of Magriet tripping, falling down the stairs flashed behind her eyes. Magriet glanced back at her, eyes narrowed, and opened her mouth as if to say something, but her foot caught on the stair and she lurched forward-
With a pained gasp, she grabbed onto the balustrade at just the right time, steadying herself. With a disgusted glance backwards, she hurried down the rest of the stairs, this time clutching the rail tightly.
Clara dressed slowly, sleep still weighing heavily at her limbs. She allowed herself a look in the tarnished mirror – her uniform was neat and free of wrinkles, as always, but her hair was as wild and untidy as ever. She ran a hand through it, half heartedly attempting to coax out the knots and tangles, but eventually gave up.
There was little to no chance that someone would be there to adopt her. Everybody knew that the older you got the less likely people wanted you. It didn’t help that she largely suspected the matron of warning visitors about her and her freakish ways.
The foyer was probably the grandest room in the house, a small austere space with stiff horsehair seats and a dripping chandelier, thin cobwebs woven between the crystals. The Matron was already standing there, swathed in black and face carefully blank. Her presence commanded authority, but she was nothing compared to the woman standing next to her.
Her hair was grey and pulled back so severely not a strand dared to escape. She was old, maybe even older than the Matron, but she exuded a refined air that the Matron could never hope to attain. She wore something that looked like an emerald-coloured robe.
All that was missing was a black witch’s hat. The events of yesterday rushed back to her, and she felt a prick of anticipation.
At the sound of the door opening, the woman turned around and her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, lips pressing together tightly.
“Good morning, Miss Potter,” the woman greeted. There was the faintest accent to her words. She turned to the Matron. “That will be all. I’ll take her now.”
Clara held her breath. She had never heard anyone speak to the Matron like that, yet the woman said nothing, only turned on her heel and walked out of the room with a slight scowl.
The woman bestowed upon her a small smile. “My name is Professor McGonagall, and I am a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I will be escorting you to purchase your school supplies.”
The name rang familiar, and Clara recalled the letter and the name signed at the end. So this was the Deputy Headmistress. She smiled back carefully.
Something shifted in the professor’s gaze, before she took a breath and continued. “You will also not be returning, so I suggest you pack up any of your belongings.”
Clara had nothing to her name. She thought of the pen lying on her desk, the second Asylum uniform hanging in the otherwise empty wardrobe. There was a book she had been reading, but it did not belong to her and she had no desire to bring it along.
“I don’t have anything to pack,” she said simply.
Professor McGonagall frowned. “Nothing at all?”
She shook her head. What did it matter now, that she had no possessions? She was leaving the Asylum, and she would never come back.
---
Diagon Alley was the most beautiful place she had ever set her eyes on.
Although, it wasn’t as if there was much competition for beautiful places Clara had been to in her lifetime. Colours spilled onto the cobbled streets, the sunlight striking a stack of cauldrons by the entrance and gilding them with gold. There were shops everywhere she looked, new sights with every step forward. She longed to dash into every store and rifle through their stock, spend hours in the bookstores poring over texts, marvel at the strange and disturbing ingredients floating in jars in the apothecary.
There were so many people crowded onto the street that her heart rate started to pick up. Professor McGonagall guided her gently to a building that loomed high in the sky, all tall pillars and elaborate pediments, carved out of lustrous marble.
“This is Gringotts Bank,” she informed Clara. “The only bank that we use, and it’s run by goblins. I advise you not to aggravate them.”
Her gaze fell onto the strange creatures guarding the entrance. They were small and vicious with their sharp-edged weapons and sharper teeth.
She hesitated before stepping into the bank, and turned to Professor McGonagall.
“I’ll really be fine on my own, now,” she said. “It would mean a lot to me to be able to explore this place on my own.”
Professor McGonagall faltered. “I cannot do that. I have not explained much at all.”
“I have an excellent memory, professor,” Clara entreated imploringly. “If you could just go over everything I’m supposed to know, I promise I will remember it.”
The professor’s expression softened, perhaps recalling a fond, long-distant memory of a student saying the same thing to her. Finally, she pulled Clara to the side and started to explain.
Clara learned that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was located somewhere in Scotland, and she would be able to find the train to take her there at Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross. She learned about the four houses, the lessons, and, last of all, her parents.
“Do you- has anyone explained to you what happened?” Professor McGonagall asked.
“My aunt and uncle always told me they were drunks who died in a car accident.”
Professor McGonagall breathed in sharply. “That is the furthest from the truth. They died fighting a dark wizard.” She looked as though she was going to say more, but she pressed her lips together and settled on: “They died protecting you.”
Clara waited for the grief, waited for the sadness that would inevitably follow the realisation that her parents had not been drunks who killed themselves on the road, but people who had fought to keep the delicate flame of her life alive, and in doing so had their own snuffed out.
She didn’t feel anything, only a relief that her aunt and uncle had been wrong, after all.
“Oh,” she said, and couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Professor McGonagall searched her pocket, and withdrew a tiny golden key. Her expression was implacable again as she pressed it into Clara’s hand.
“The original plan was for the Hogwarts gamekeeper to show you around Diagon Alley, but we had not expected you to be absent from your aunt and uncle’s house. This key will be yours now, and can be used to access your vaults and prove your identity.”
“Thank you,” Clara said. “I look forward to attending Hogwarts.”
The professor nodded, giving her a small smile, before turning on her heel and disappearing among the rest of the crowd. Clara turned to the bank, a small smile playing on her lips.
This world surely held answers, and she was going to retrieve them at any cost.
Striding up to the nearest available desk, she cleared her throat and watched as the goblin stopped writing in a thick ledger. A couple of egg-sized rubies lay scattered to the side.
“Good afternoon,” she said as politely as she could, “I would like to access my vaults.”
“Vault key?”
“This,” she slid the gold key across. He barely glanced at it, just waved over a goblin to take her to the vaults. Before she left, she paused.
“If I were looking for more information about my…heritage, where would I find it?”
He flicked his gaze up slowly, frowning unpleasantly.
“I am not a wizard,” he said sharply. “I wouldn’t know where the wizards keep their information. But Gringotts does offer blood tests, at a steep price.”
Her curiosity threatened to spill, and Clara nodded silently. He pointed down a long, marbled hallway, beady eyes glinting. “Eighth door on the right.”
The door led to a small room stripped down to its very bones. There was no furniture but a single round table in the centre, balancing a roughly-hewn, gleaming stone bowl and a ceremonial knife beside it.
A goblin stood near the table, shrewd eyes flicking to her face and then, unsurprisingly, her scar. Clara nodded at him.
(She had seen the weapons in the guards’ hands and would prefer them not stained with her blood.)
“I am here for a blood test,” she said, and the goblin grunted, motioning to the bowl and knife.
“A drop of blood, from the palm of the hand.”
She admired the knife’s smooth handle and sharp glinting blade before cutting a shallow line into her palm. Stamping down a wince, she squeezed a single drop into the bowl, which glowed when it registered the blood.
It was a very dark colour, but shiny. If Clara had to guess, it was probably carved from obsidian.
She watched as the colour seemed to seep from the bowl, leaving it a bone white, before some sort of vapour inside congealed and hardened to form – a piece of parchment, almost falling apart in its fragility.
The goblin snatched it up and passed it to Clara wordlessly.
Name: Clara Lily Potter
Mother: Lily Magnolia Potter, nee Evans (deceased)
Father: James Fleamont Potter (deceased)
Godmother: Mary Macdonald (incapacitated)
Godfather: Sirius Orion Black (imprisoned)
Heirships:
Potter (unclaimed)
Lordships:
Potter (upon maturity)
Vaults:
Potter Trust Fund
Potter Vault (upon maturity)
Clara felt her mouth twist wryly as she read the family history. It wasn’t as if she was particularly surprised – no one had ever come for her, ever looked for her in the years she went missing from her aunt’s house.
The vaults were interesting. It seemed that the Potters were wealthy enough to grant their heir a trust fund, and that was enough for Clara, who had never owned a new thing in her life.
She handed the parchment back to the goblin, and it collapsed into air in his hands. The bowl regained its black colour, the blood vanishing from the knife. Her hand throbbed, but the skin too had already stitched itself back up.
A trip to the vault later, she exited the bank with an heirship ring weighing down her hand and more money she had ever called her own in her pocket.
---
There was only one stop left before she could return to the room at the Leaky Cauldron booked for her by Professor McGonagall, and it was the wand shop.
All of her new school supplies were neatly packaged in brown paper and she had to fight the urge to find a small corner somewhere and devour the new textbooks. Alongside A Standard Book of Spells and A History of Magic and A Beginners Guide to Transfiguration, she had also purchased a few books for some extra reading on the wizarding society. Surely, it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.
Ollivanders was just on the perimeter of Diagon Alley, bordering on Knockturn Alley, a narrow, damp street stretching into darkness and thick with beggars and suspicious folk. Clara chanced a look at the dim gas lamps and boarded-up shops, an uneasy feeling creeping up her spine.
Stepping cautiously into the dark, cramped shop, she looked around and found a silver bell on the desk. She shook it and a sharp clang rang out, unrelenting in its high pitch. Flinching, she stepped away and instead took in her surroundings, noting the tall crooked bookshelves lining the walls, crammed with thin rectangular boxes. It was eerily lit with lamps she couldn’t see.
When nobody answered, she scraped the ground with the tip of her shoe and was just about to walk out the door when a man appeared suddenly behind the desk with a small creak. It was all she could do to not jump backwards in alarm.
“Miss Potter,” he said, pale eyes bright in the dim lighting. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Clara resisted the urge to touch her scar self-consciously. It had always been her most defining feature.
“It’s the eyes,” he said, apparently reading her mind. “They look just like your mother’s.”
Well, that wasn’t in the least creepy. Unnerved by the idea that he might be rifling through her mind, Clara took half a step backwards, considering fleeing the shop. Ollivander started shuffling around in the shelves behind him, muttering to himself.
“It’s the wand that chooses the wizard, of course,” he said absently. “What is your birthday? And the moon you were born under as well, if you please.”
She answered with false courage and he gave her a cursory glance that seemed to tell him everything he needed to know.
“Try this,” he said, pushing a wand box over. “Black walnut, unicorn hair core, 10 and a ½ inches long. Exceptionally good for charmswork. Give it a swish.”
The wand didn’t just jerk and flop uselessly in her hand. It also shattered a window, a shower of glass clattering onto the floor.
Ollivanders ignored this, a kind of mad delight igniting in his eyes, and pressed another wand into her hand. “Applewood, dragon heartstring core, 13 and a ¼ inches. Temperamental but very powerful.”
This one exploded in a shower of golden sparks, and Clara was struck by the sudden stab of mournfulness that rang through her body. Splinters of wood lay at her feet.
Ollivanders didn’t seem to be disturbed by the sudden death of one of his creations, only pushed another wand to her. And another. It went on and on, until the shop was almost half destroyed.
Finally, he passed Clara a sleek, gleaming wand, and it fitted almost perfectly into her grasp.
“An unusual combination,” he said serenely. “Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple-”
He was cut off abruptly as a cascade of silver burst from the wand tip, wreathing smoke through the air. It didn’t smell acrid, like the smoke some of the failed wands produced – it shimmered and reminded Clara of rain lit up under cold streetlamps at night. She held the wand – her wand- reverently in front of her.
“An excellent match, if I do say so myself!” Ollivanders beamed and began tidying up the mess on the counter.
The only wand that had come quite as close to feeling as euphoric was a vine wand, 13 and ¾ inches – and even then, it had produced only a feeble spluttering of sparks. Clara twirled the wand in her fingers, watching the silver smoke fade away.
She walked out of the shop, knowing that a chapter of her life had closed, and the next was just beginning.