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Chapter Text

Nella dodged Dudley’s Smeltings stick - his aim was getting better already, and she filed that worry away for later - and went to get the mail.

Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Aunt Marge, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and a letter. For Nella.

Miss N. Potter
The Cupboard Under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging, Surrey

Nella stared at it lying there on the mat as if it were a snake that would bite her. No one, in her entire life, had ever written to her. Who would? She had no friends, no other relatives, she hardly ever left the house, unless it was to weed the flowerbeds or go to Mrs Figg’s or hide from Dudley at the park down the road. 

Nella picked it up. 

The envelope was thick and heavy and made of yellowish parchment, and somehow she knew it hadn’t come from Mrs Figg. The emerald green ink glimmered faintly as she turned it over and saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake, all surrounding a large letter H.

“Hurry up girl!”

Nella jumped and nearly dropped the mail at her uncle’s impatient bark. She quickly slid her letter under the door to her cupboard and hurried back into the kitchen. “S-sorry, Uncle Vernon.”

“What took you so long?” he barked, snatching the bill and postcard out of her hands.

“I w-was looking at the postcard,” Nella lied quickly. “Isn’t that lighthouse beautiful?”

Uncle Vernon grunted and flipped over the card. “Marge is ill,” he reported. 

Nella was ignored for the rest of the meal. After breakfast, Nella cleared the table, did the dishes, took out the trash, and washed the living room windows, before Aunt Petunia told her to get out of the house for the afternoon. She was going to do some vacuuming and didn’t want Nella underfoot, tracking dirt from room to room.

Nella headed down the street to the park. The way the adults in the neighborhood talked about it, it wasn’t even a nice park, but it was away from Number 4, and Dudley rarely felt like walking so far to bully her. There was almost never anyone else around, so Nella had her pick of the swings or the squeaky merry-go-round or the slide that was somehow always too hot to slide down. Sometimes, if the Dursleys had gone out and the weather was especially fine, Mrs Figg would bring Nella here for a picnic of slightly stale sandwiches and slightly sour strawberries and slightly dry tea cakes, and she would tell Nella about the time she’d found Tufty under the slide as a kitten. 

Nella slipped into the park through the gap in the hedge. She preferred this to the creaking gate that always announced her arrival. There was one big, old oak tree, older than the entire neighborhood, at one end of the park. There had been a plaque once, something about how the tree was old and needed to be protected, but it had been taken away for repairs after some sort of vandalism, and it hadn’t been put back. The tree had great, sweeping branches that were bigger around than Nella was, and Nella figured the tree could look after itself. If she was quick and quiet about it, she could slip into the park and climb up among the leaves without any of the nosy ladies in Wisteria Walk noticing and telling her off. Nella scrambled up to her favorite branch and lay back to look at the dancing leaves overhead. It was quite a comfortable spot, all things considered.

Nella headed for home when the sun began sinking toward the rooftops of Wisteria Walk. If she was late for dinner, she wouldn’t get any, but if she was too early, she’d make Aunt Petunia angry for getting underfoot. It was a horrible sort of waiting game, but Nella had grown quite good at it over the years. She’d head home and peek through the kitchen window. If Aunt Petunia was working on dinner, she’d go in and offer to set the table, so that even if she was earlier than her aunt would like, there was a point to her being there. If she was still cleaning somewhere else in the house, Nella would hide in the hydrangeas in front of the living room window and listen for signs her aunt was heading to the kitchen. If she was still there when Uncle Vernon came home, she could tell him she was pulling weeds.

She knew something was badly wrong when she came around the curve by Number 8 and saw that Uncle Vernon’s car was home. She glanced at the slowly sinking sun. He shouldn’t be home for at least an hour yet. She slowed down to think. Uncle Vernon never came home early. Maybe he was ill? Maybe something had happened to Dudley? Whatever it was, she had a sinking feeling in her gut that she was late.

Sure enough, the front door opened as Nella reached the end of the driveway. “Get in here,” Uncle Vernon growled, glancing around to make sure none of the neighbors were watching. 

Her heart felt like it was trying to climb out of her throat as she scooted past him through the door. At first, she couldn’t think what she could have done to upset him, but then she saw her cupboard door standing open. Aunt Petunia had been vacuuming.

The letter.

“Kitchen, now.”

Aunt Petunia was sitting at the table, a cup of tea in front of her, the strange letter lying beside it. She looked pale and upset.

“Sit,” her uncle barked, shoving Nella into a chair across from Aunt Petunia. “So…”

Nella bit her lip. This was bad. 

“Your aunt called me at work today,” Uncle Vernon said with forced calm. “Said you’d had a letter. Said you’d hidden it in your cupboard.”

Nella didn’t answer. She didn't think her voice would work with her throat all knotted up around her pounding heart.

“Well? What have you got to say for yourself, girl?”

“I-I’m sorry," she croaked. "I didn’t m-mean to hide it — not really. It surprised me is all, and I didn’t know what to do, so I figured I’d deal with it later on. Th-then I forgot about it. I’m sorry you had to come home early, Uncle Vernon.”

“You’re sorry, are you?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“An accident?”

Nella nodded, though she knew it couldn’t possibly be this easy, not if Aunt Petunia had called him home from work. The letter was open now, the envelope ripped nearly in two and that thick, yellow parchment crumpled and creased. Something in the letter had upset them, possibly even more than the simple fact of Nella receiving it.

Uncle Vernon’s voice was a dangerous hiss. “And when I asked you what took you so long this morning, and you fed me some rubbish about pretty lighthouses, I suppose that was an accident, too?”

“I —“

“Quiet!” Uncle Vernon roared, swatting Nella upside the head hard enough to knock her glasses askew. 

Nella went very still, clasping her hands in her lap to stop herself from touching her stinging ear. 

“You are in enough trouble already, girl. You lied this morning. You lied again just now. You hid this letter on purpose. You knew you weren’t meant to have it. And all this cost me half a day’s work on one of my biggest accounts! You’ll be paying for all of that when we’ve finished here, make no mistake! What I want to know right now is how much of this letter you read before your aunt interrupted your scheming.”

“N-none of it, Uncle Vernon,” Nella said. “I swear. I w-was still trying to —“

“You’re a nasty little liar,” Aunt Petunia snarled suddenly, gripping her teacup so hard her fingertips turned white. “How do you expect us to believe anything you say, you little brat?”

“No, I swear! I didn’t even open it!”

Uncle Vernon hit her again, this time across the face, and her cheek warmed to match her ear. 

“Please! I didn’t open it! Th-the seal! I hadn’t broken the seal! It was still sealed, wasn’t it?” 

Her uncle looked at her aunt, who nodded once, her lips a thin white line. 

Uncle Vernon sagged in obvious relief, which only confused Nella more. “The fact remains, you’ve caused all sorts of trouble for your aunt today, girl. Now, we’re going to go upstairs and wash the lies out of that treacherous mouth of yours, and then you’re going to come down and help your aunt get dinner on the table, and if I hear one single word of backtalk, you’ll wish you’d never been born. You understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

***

When he got back from work the next day, Uncle Vernon visited Nella in her cupboard. Nella swallowed hard and winced at the lingering taste of soap at the back of her dry throat. Of course she hadn’t been allowed to eat any of the dinner she’d helped make the night before, and Aunt Petunia hadn’t even left her the usual crackers and water this morning. 

 She scooted into a corner to make room for her uncle’s bulk as she tried desperately to think if there was anything else for him to be angry about. She hadn’t made a sound all day since thanking her uncle for letting her out to use the bathroom before he left for work that morning, so she couldn’t have disturbed Aunt Petunia. The cupboard was temporarily spider-free, thanks to her aunt’s vacuuming the day before. Her stolen lightbulb was safely hidden away in the mouse hole beneath the lowest stair at the end of the cupboard, and her clothes were neatly folded on the narrow shelf at the head of her bed. Still, she didn’t dare speak as he stared around at the tiny space. 

“I hear you were very good today,” he said at last. “Not a peep out of you. You know you did very wrong yesterday hiding that letter, don’t you, Nella?”

Nella nodded at once. “Yes, Uncle Vernon. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are.” 

“I didn’t mean to hide it,” Nella offered timidly. “I just… I’d never had a letter before. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

“And now you do, don’t you? You bring them straight to me or your aunt. Understand?” 

“Yes, sir.”

“And it wasn’t really for you, anyway. It was a mistake.” Nella knew this wasn’t true — it had had her cupboard on it — but she didn’t argue. Uncle Vernon forced his face into a rather painful-looking smile. “Your aunt and I have been talking today… You’re really getting a bit big for this cupboard, aren’t you? We thought it might be nice if you moved upstairs, into Dudley’s second bedroom.”

“W-why?” asked Nella, sensing a trap but unable to see the shape of it.

“Don’t ask questions!” snapped her uncle, the smile gone without a trace. “Take your things upstairs, now!”

Nella was able to carry all her things upstairs in one trip. Dudley’s second bedroom, which was usually filled with all the toys and things that wouldn’t fit in his first bedroom, was nearly empty. Gone were the broken televisions, the empty birdcage, the bent air rifle, and the unread books. All that was left in the room was the bed, the desk, the wardrobe, and an empty bookshelf. She put her clothes in the wardrobe and sat down on the bed that was so much softer than her old one in the cupboard, but she couldn’t enjoy it. She could hear Dudley’s tantrum downstairs, and she lay back and resigned herself to a lot of running and hiding in her future.

***

The next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He’d cried, screamed, flipped the kitchen table, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and put his Smeltings stick through the television set in the living room, and still, he didn’t have his second bedroom back. 

Nella was in pain. Dudley had caught her three times with his Smeltings stick so far this morning. As his parents seemed to feel that this was a healthier outlet for his frustrations than the tantrums of the day before, they didn’t even bother to comment when he caught her for the fourth time, whacking her around the shins underneath the table. However, when the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon took a bizarre sort of pity on the limping Nella and made Dudley go and get it. They could hear him banging things with his Smeltings stick all the way down the hall.

“There’s another one!” he shouted. “’Miss N. Potter, the Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet drive —“

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall. There was the sound of a scuffle in the hallway, and several bangs from the Smeltings stick, but then Dudley and Uncle Vernon reentered the kitchen. Both were red-faced and breathing hard. Uncle Vernon had Nella's letter clutched in one hand, and he seized her right ear with the other.

“Go to your cupboard — I mean, your bedroom,” he wheezed at her, dragging her out of the chair and shoving her toward the hall. “Dudley — go — just go.”

Dudley shoved past Nella and stormed up the stairs. At the top, he lashed out suddenly with the Smeltings stick, knocking Nella’s feet out from under her. He plopped his full weight down on top of Nella’s back and smashed her face into the carpet.

“I dunno what sort of freaky trick you pulled this time,” he hissed, “but that room is mine. You’ll get out, if you know what’s good for you.”

Nella couldn’t get a breath in past her cousin’s crushing bulk, but he seemed satisfied with her pained wheeze, and he climbed off of her and finished storming into his bedroom, slamming his door hard enough to knock photos off the wall. Nella crawled into her own room and shut the door as quietly as she could, hoping she wouldn’t be blamed.

Lying on the floor next to the furnace vent, she could hear her uncle’s voice from the kitchen.

“I won’t have one in the house, Petunia!” 

Aunt Petunia said something indistinct but clearly worried.

“We’ll ignore it! Best way to deal with these people. If they get an answer, they’ll think they’ve got us on the ropes! We ignore them, and they’ll give up on the girl. You’ll see.”

Later that night, Nella paced her new room, trying to keep her mind off her growling stomach. She hadn’t been let out for lunch or dinner that day, and she’d only managed a slice of toast and half a fried egg before the mail had arrived that morning. Aunt Petunia had brought her a sleeve of soda crackers and a bottle of water before she went to bed, but Nella was rationing them, in case the situation with the letters got any worse. Someone knew she had moved out of her cupboard, and they seemed to know she hadn’t received her first letter. Surely that meant they’d try again? 

If she was going to be blamed for the letters anyway, she decided she’d rather at least know what was going on. She’d often daydreamed of long-lost relatives coming to rescue her from her aunt and uncle’s house, but what if there really was someone with the power to do something to help her? She’d never really dared hope for such a thing before. And if it was someone wanting to take her away, she couldn’t understand why her aunt and uncle were so upset about it. They hated Nella. She’d have thought they’d jump at any chance to be rid of her.

Over the next few hours, she talked herself into and out of her plan, but in the end, as the first pinkish tinge rose over the houses on Privet Drive, she decided she had to do something. She had to know who the mysterious letter writer was and what they wanted. If it made things worse, so be it. It was making things worse already.

Nella picked up her sneakers and tiptoed downstairs without turning on any of the lights. She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the morning’s mail first. She knew where he parked each morning to do the deliveries for the street. She would hide in the bushes in case the Dursleys came to find her, but with a little luck — 

Nella leapt into the air as something big and squashy on the doormat let out a groan under her foot. Uncle Vernon was lying at the foot of the front door on an air mattress, clearly making sure Nella didn’t do exactly what she’d been trying to do. He shouted at Nella for about half an hour, hit her with her sneakers from time to time to emphasize important points, and then told her to go and make him a cup of tea. 

Nella shuffled miserably off into the kitchen, and by the time she got back, the mail had arrived. She could see three letters addressed in green ink.

“Uncle Vernon —“ she began, but Uncle Vernon was already shredding the letters into thin strips before her eyes.

Nella was sent out to weed the back flower beds without breakfast, and when she came inside again hours later, it was to discover that Uncle Vernon had stayed home from work. He’d nailed up the mail slot and installed a deadbolt lock on the door to Nella’s new bedroom, and he seemed quite pleased with his handiwork. He allowed Nella a shower and a sandwich, and then locked her in her bedroom for the night with a satisfied smirk.

***

On Friday, no less than a twelve letters arrived for Nella, pushed under the front door, or slotted through the sides, and a handful were even found jammed in around the window frame on the back door.

Uncle Vernon stayed home again, burned all the letters, and boarded up all the cracks around the front and back doors, so no one could go out. He made Nella hand him the nails while he lectured her about respect for property, and then he sent her back to her room again without any food. While this was in no way fair, Nella knew she’d gotten off incredibly easy.

***

On Saturday, Aunt Petunia relented and told Nella she could have breakfast, only to shriek as she discovered twenty-four letters rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon bellowed at the poor woman who answered the phone at the dairy, Aunt Petunia ran the eggs and letters through her food processor and made Nella eat the resulting paste.

“Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?” Dudley asked Nella in amazement as she hung her head over the toilet afterward, her stomach aching.

***

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon unlocked Nella’s bedroom door looking tired and rather ill, but happy. “No post on Sundays,” he said cheerfully as he held the door open for Nella. “No damn letters today!“

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as they walked into the kitchen and caught him sharply above the eyebrow. A moment later, dozens and dozens of letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Nella lunged forward, trying to catch one.

“Out! OUT!” Uncle Vernon seized Nella by the hair and dragged her out into the hall. As soon as Aunt Petunia and Dudley had cleared the door, he slammed it shut. They could still hear letters bouncing off the walls and floor.

“V-vernon, dear?” Aunt Petunia sounded terrified.

“We’re going away,” he answered, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Pack some clothes. Five minutes.”

Ten minutes later, they had wrenched their way though the boarded-up front door and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the backseat. His father had hit him upside the head for holding them up while he tried to fit his television in his sports bag. When the tears didn’t get him any sympathy, he got angry and demanded to know where they were going, but Aunt Petunia didn’t know, and Uncle Vernon seemed incapable of speech. 

By nightfall, Dudley was howling mad. He’d never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry. He’d missed a whole day’s worth of television programs he’d wanted to see. And he’d never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer. Nella bore the brunt of his bad mood, in the form of slaps and kicks and pinches, but as her aunt and uncle also seemed to think this whole mess was her fault, they once again did nothing to curb Dudley’s temper.

They stopped at last at a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. They ate greasy sausage rolls for dinner, but Dudley wrestled most of Nella’s away from her. Her aunt and uncle took one of the two creaky beds in the room, and Dudley took the other, while Nella sat up on the windowsill, listening to the Dursleys snore, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering where the letter writer was now.

***

They ate cold scrambled eggs and stale toast for breakfast the next day. Dudley complained loudly about the food, but Nella, who hadn’t had a proper meal in days, wolfed it down before her cousin could decide he wanted her helping as well as his own.

They had just finished, when the woman from the front desk came over to their table. “’Scuse me, but are you Miss N. Potter? Only I got about an ‘undred of these at the front desk.” She held up a letter so she could read the green ink address:

Miss N. Potter
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth

Nella reached for the letter, but Uncle Vernon caught her hand and dragged it beneath the table in a crushing grip. The woman stared, but Nella knew better than to make a sound, even as her eyes watered.

“I’ll take them,” said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.

Back at the car, Uncle Vernon pulled Nella aside, twisting her ear viciously. “You listen here, girl. Next letter you touch is going to get you your fingers broken. Understand?”

“Y-yes, Uncle Vernon,” Nella whimpered, unable to nod with his grip on her ear. The fingers on her right hand were already stiff and swollen from her uncle’s grip. She wasn’t so sure they weren’t broken already, but she certainly didn’t want to see how much worse he could damage them.

***

“Daddy’s gone mad, hasn’t he?” Dudley asked dully that evening, when Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared without a word. “It’s Monday. The Great Humberto’s on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television.”

Nella started. She’d forgotten what day it was entirely. Tomorrow, Tuesday, would be her eleventh birthday. It wasn’t as though her birthdays were ever really special or fun — last year, she'd gotten a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks and a bad sunburn from staying out all day doing yard work — but still, you weren’t eleven every day.

After an hour or so, Uncle Vernon came striding back, grinning broadly. He was carrying a long, thin package and bouncing a little as he walked.

“Found the perfect place,” he called as he unlocked the car. “Come on! Everyone out!”

It was very cold outside the car, and great, fat drops of rain had begun to fall. 

“Storm forecast for tonight,” said Uncle Vernon gleefully, pointing to a large rock way out to sea. Perched atop the rock was the most miserable little shack imaginable. “Come on! I’ve already got us some rations, and a gentleman in the shop kindly agreed to lend us his boat!” 

He ushered them into a rickety-looking old rowboat bobbing on the iron-gray waves. He rowed for what felt like hours, and by the time they reached the rock, Nella felt sure she’d never be warm again. Finally, he led them up a worn set of stone stairs and into the horrible little house. The inside was, if anything, worse than the outside. It smelled strongly of seaweed. The wind whistled through gaps in the wooden walls. There were only two rooms, and the fireplace was damp and empty.

“Could do with some of those letters now, eh?” said Uncle Vernon happily. The manic cheer was almost more frightening than the furious silence of the car ride had been. Nella didn’t think the letter writer would give up just because they were out at sea, and she was terrified of what would happen when Uncle Vernon woke up to thousands of letters collapsing the roof or something.

Uncle Vernon passed out the “rations,” which turned out to be a banana and a bag of chips for each of them. Dudley inhaled his meager dinner and then wrestled Nella’s banana away from her. She had the fleeting satisfaction of seeing his face fall when he opened the banana peel to see the pulpy mess he’d made of it, but then her stomach gave an almighty growl, and the satisfaction was gone.

As night fell, the promised storm settled in around the hut on the rock. Salty sea spray misted in through the walls, and a fierce wind made the whole building shudder. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed in the next room, and Nella was again ignored. She scavenged a ragged bit of fabric from beneath the sofa and curled up on the driest bit of floor she could find. 

Nella dozed fitfully as the storm grew more and more ferocious. She hadn’t slept a wink the night before, and Dudley had prodded her awake with a nasty smirk any time she’d fallen asleep in the car, but still, she only managed a few minutes of sleep at a time. She could tell by the lighted dial on Dudley’s watch, which hung over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist. Her eyes would drift shut, and then she’d inevitably be woken by a particularly loud howl from the wind, or a thunderclap, or a fresh cloud of sea water soaking into her inadequate bedding. She was freezing cold, and her stomach ached, her crushed hand was throbbing, and Dudley was snoring like a chainsaw.

At two minutes to midnight, Nella considered waking Dudley up, just to annoy him, but then she decided he’d probably just hit her again, and she didn’t really want her first few minutes as an eleven-year-old to be spent trying to halt a bloody nose. She had nearly decided to just try and forget about her birthday altogether, when a resounding crash shook the entire shack.

Chapter Text

Another crash shook the building, and Uncle Vernon skidded into the room, a rifle in his hands. The sight of her bully of an uncle with a gun in his hands nearly made her knees give out, and Nella pressed herself into the narrow corner where the fireplace met the wall and concentrated on keeping her breathing under control. She tapped her fingers against the slimy wall and counted. Four taps in, four taps out. Panic never helped.

A third crash sounded, and Nella realized it was someone pounding on the door. 

“Who’s there?” Uncle Vernon bellowed over the roar of the waves in the storm. “I’m warning you — I’m armed!”

One more crash shook the building, and the door swung clean off of its hinges and landed flat on the floor.

A huge figure was standing in the hole where the door had been. The next flash of lightning showed a glimpse of beetle black eyes hidden in a wild mane of shaggy hair, and an enormous, black overcoat that whipped in the wind. 

“Leave at once, sir!” yelled Uncle Vernon. “This is breaking and entering!”

The giant ignored Uncle Vernon completely and squeezed his way into the hut, stooping low to stop his head brushing the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door and fit it back into its frame. The next flash of lightning showed him turning back to face them all. 

“Sorry ‘bout that,” the giant said. He spotted the gun in Uncle Vernon’s hand and let out a deep bark of laughter. He tugged it out of his hands and tied it in a knot as easily as if it were made of rubber, then dropped it to the floor.

Uncle Vernon made a sound like a deflating tire.

The giant ignored him. He looked around the dismal little room, and his eyes fell on Nella, shivering beside the cold fireplace. “An’ here’s Nella! But yer freezin’!” He glared at Uncle Vernon and then knelt down in front of the fireplace with a frilly pink umbrella. When he drew back a moment later, a roaring fire rose up to fill the hut with light and warmth. “There now,” he said, and Nella saw his eyes were crinkled in a smile behind his wild hair and beard. “How’s that?”

“That girl is none of your business, sir! I demand that you leave!”

“Bah,” said the giant. “None of my business! I’m a great friend of her parents, I’ll have you know! Watched Lily and James grow up an’ all!” He turned back toward Nella. “Better?”

Nella felt as though she’d just sunk into a warm bath, and it was absolutely wonderful. She nodded and took a tentative step away from the slimy wall, pressing her fingers instead into the rapidly warming stones of the fireplace. She meant to thank the giant, but what came out instead was a terrified squeak. “W-who are you?”

The giant laughed. “Righ’! Sorry! Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Yeh can call me Hagrid. Everyone does. Ha! Las’ time I saw yeh, Nella, you was only a baby.” He put out an enormous hand and shook Nella’s whole arm. Even though his grip was gentle, it sent shooting pains through her hand and wrist. Thankfully Hagrid didn’t seem to notice when she didn’t return his grip, because Uncle Vernon was yelling again.

“I-I demand that you leave at once, sir!”

“Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune,” said Hagrid. “I’ve not had an easy journey, an’ I reckon it’s yer fault we’re all out here in a storm. Dumbledore said yeh’d make difficulties.” He turned and spotted Dudley huddling on the sofa. “Budge up, yeh great lump. I’m dead tired.”

Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching already behind Uncle Vernon. Hagrid sat down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, but then he jumped up again with a squawk. He fumbled around in his black overcoat for a minute and then pulled out a large, slightly squashed pink box, which he held out for Nella. “Ah, sat on it a bit, I’m afraid, but I reckon it’ll taste alright.”

Nella took the box, careful not to let Hagrid see the bruising on her right hand, and opened it. Inside was a large, sticky-looking chocolate cake with a smear of green icing that must have once been words.

“Happy birthday!” Hagrid said, sinking back onto the sofa, which sagged all the way to the floor. “Made it meself!”

Nella nodded wordlessly, her eyes still on the mess of chocolate and icing in the box. Her very own birthday cake. She didn’t even care what it looked like. It was hers. This stranger had made it just for her. Could he really have been a friend of her parents? Lily and James. She turned the unfamiliar names over and over in her mind. Her parents were called Lily and James... 

“Now,” Hagrid said, rubbing his hands together. “We’ve a bit o’ talkin’ ter do, an’ as I said, it’s not been an easy journey. Yeh wouldn’ have a cup o’ tea handy, would yeh? Though I’d not say no ter summat a bit stronger…”

“Er,” Nella said, eyes darting from the giant to her aunt and uncle and back again. She didn’t know who she should appease. Surely, if even her aunt and uncle were afraid of Hagrid… “W-we don’t —“

“You’ll not be staying,” Uncle Vernon interrupted, somewhat shrilly. He advanced on Hagrid, and Aunt Petunia and Dudley shuffled along behind, looking absurd as they both hid from and approached the giant at the same time. 

“I’ve a job ter do, Dursley. Headmaster ‘imself trusted me ter do it, an’ a great muggle like yerself won’ be stoppin’ me!”

“Oh, I know all about the ‘job’ you’re here to do,” Uncle Vernon spat, though he looked rather pale. “I’ve read those damn letters! And I tell you I will not stand for it! We are the girl’s legal guardians, and we will decide what is best for her. We will not tolerate any talk of that-that unnaturalness! Do you hear me?”

“Unnatural… Dursley!” Hagrid shouted, rising to his feet once more. He looked wildly around at Nella again. “There’s nothin’ unnatural about it! Her parents —“

“No!” Aunt Petunia squeaked.

“STOP! I FORBID YOU!” bellowed Uncle Vernon in a voice that usually meant Nella would be bleeding before he was done with her.

Nella shrank back into her corner, but Hagrid was fearless in the face of her uncle’s temper. When he spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage. “Do you mean to tell me yeh’ve kept it from her all these years? Never told her what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer her? I was there! I saw him leave it! It’s her birthright!”

“Birthright!” Aunt Petunia shrieked suddenly. “Her birthright! Ha! Oh, she’s a freak, all right! Just like her mother, just like that awful Potter boy and everyone else at that horrible school of theirs! ”

“Freak!” Hagrid looked aghast, but Aunt Petunia wasn’t done. It was as if she’d been waiting years to say all this.

“Of course she’s just the same! My sister got a letter just like the ones you’ve been sending after us. She disappeared off to that school and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats! I was the only one who saw her for what she really was, but for my mother and father, oh no! It was Lily this and Lily that! They were proud of having a witch in the family!”

Nella’s ears were ringing. She couldn’t possibly be hearing any of this properly. She was dreaming, surely. A witch?

“And then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up, and we got landed with the little freak!”

“FREAK!” Hagrid jumped up with an angry roar that made the Dursleys scurry back to their own corner, and as terrified as Nella was, she couldn’t deny the tiny flicker of hope in her chest at seeing the Dursleys cowed. “Nella Potter a freak! It’s an outrage! A scandal! Nella Potter not knowin’ her own story, when every kid in our world knows her name!”

“What? Why?”

The anger faded from Hagrid’s face at Nella’s blurted question, and he seemed to deflate, looking suddenly anxious. “I never expected this,” he muttered in a low, worried voice. “No idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin’ hold of yeh…Tha’ they migh’ not like… Ah, Nella… I dunno if I’m the right person ter tell yeh, but someone’s gotta. Can’t go off ter Hogwarts not knowin’…”

“NO!” Uncle Vernon bellowed. “She’s not going! We swore when we took her in we’d put a stop to that rubbish! A witch indeed! She’s abnormal, is what she is, and we’ll stamp it out of her yet!”

“Stamp it out —“ Hagrid looked as though he couldn’t understand what he was hearing. He had his pink umbrella gripped in a white-knuckled hand, and he raised it threateningly at Uncle Vernon. “Stamp the magic out o’ Lily and James Potter’s daughter! Yeh don’ know what yer sayin’! She’s goin’ to the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world, Dursley. She’s had her name down ever since she were born! And no muggle’s gonna stop her! Albus Dumbledore himself —“

“I WILL NOT PAY FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HER MAGIC TRICKS!”

But Uncle Vernon had apparently gone too far.

Hagrid whirled his umbrella over his head with a roar of rage to put Uncle Vernon’s to shame. “NEVER INSULT ALBUS DUMBLEDORE IN FRONT OF ME!”

He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at the Dursleys. There was a bang like a gun, a flash of brilliant violet light, and a sharp squeal. The next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clamped over his bottom, howling in horror. When he spun on the spot, Nella saw a curly pig’s tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Uncle Vernon roared and grabbed for Dudley and Aunt Petunia, but he froze when Hagrid poked him in the chest with the end of the umbrella. When he spoke, Hagrid’s voice was a low, rumbling growl. “I’ll be takin’ Nella with me in the mornin’ ter get her school things, an’ you’ll be puttin’ her on the school train September first. Yes?”

Her uncle cast one furious glare at Nella before quailing at another jab from the umbrella. “Y-yes,” he said. “September first.” Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.

“Bah! Shouldn’t ‘ave lost me temper,” Hagrid said quietly, stroking his beard. “Sorry ‘bout that, Nella.”

Nella, who had been regarding the giant with equal parts terror and awe as he stood up to her uncle, blinked. “I-it’s alright,” she said after a moment. “No one got really hurt.”

Hagrid cast a cautious smile at Nella from behind his bushy beard. “Be grateful if yeh didn’ mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts,” he said tentatively. “I’m — er — not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin’. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an’ get yer letters to yeh an’ stuff, but…” He trailed off, looking ashamed. “It didn’ work right anyway. Meant ter turn yer uncle into a pig.”

Nella let out a bubble of somewhat hysterical laughter.

Hagrid looked relieved. Then he frowned. “’Ere — I still want that cuppa tea.” He sat back down on the sofa again and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat. Within minutes, the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausages, and Hagrid was setting a chipped mug of steaming tea in front of Nella. After all the fuss about having a job to do, he didn’t seem particularly eager to tell her anything, and it occurred to Nella that he might be having second thoughts after meeting her and her relatives. Not that she could blame him, of course. How could she possibly be a witch when she’d been bullied by her relatives every day of her life? Surely, a witch would have turned them into beetles or made their hands shrivel up the first time they’d touched her?

“Um, Hagrid,” Nella ventured after a moment. She had learned the hard way to be up front about unpleasantness. It was only worse if people found out later. “I-I think you must have made a mistake… I don’t think I can be a-a witch.”

To her surprise, Hagrid laughed. “Nella Potter, not a witch! Hah!” He looked at her shrewdly as he slid a couple of juicy, slightly burnt sausages off the poker onto a cracked plate and passed it to her. “O’ course yeh wouldn’ believe it, growin’ up with that fat lot o’ muggles.”

“M-muggles?”

“Non-magic folk. What Dumbledore was thinkin’ stickin’ yeh with them… Nella, yer a witch as sure as I’m sittin’ here. Parents like yers, what else could yeh be?”

“W-what do you mean?” Nella asked. “I-I don’t know anything about them. S-sorry!” she added hastily at the pained look that crossed Hagrid’s face.

“Yer sorry! It’s them as should be sorry!” Hagrid jerked his head at the closed door to the other room. “Nella… I dunno where ter begin. Maybe… maybe yeh ought ter read yer letter. Yeah. Tha’s somethin’. An’ I’ll give this a bit of a think while yer readin’. How’s that?”

Nella nodded. Her uncle’s warning about broken fingers rang in her ears, but she was fairly certain she was as good as dead anyway, after all this mess with Hagrid. She’d rather at least know. With one terrified glance at the closed door, Nella stretched out her shaking left hand to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green ink to 

Miss N. Potter
The Floor
Hut-On-The-Rock
The Sea

She pulled out the letter and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

 Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
Order of Merlin, First Class
Grand Sorcerer
Chief Warlock
Supreme Mugwump
International Confederation of Wizards

Dear Miss Potter, 
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31. 

Yours sincerely, 
Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress 

Nella read the letter through twice while Hagrid fussed with the fire, clearly not finished thinking of what to tell her. She tucked the letter carefully back into the envelope. Her thoughts were spinning out in a thousand directions all at once.

Hagrid turned back and slid another pair of sausages onto the plate. “Eat up,” he said. “Yer mum was a skinny kid, too, but you look like one stiff breeze could blow yeh away.”

Nella did as she was told, and she was sure she’d never tasted anything as wonderful as those sausages, until she tasted the cake. It wasn’t really cake-shaped anymore, so Hagrid scooped out huge lumps of it for each of them. It was heavy and fudgy, and the icing had melted into it in spots, but he’d made it just for her. And carried it halfway across the country, chasing her uncle’s madness. Why?

“Hagrid,” she said, once she’d washed the sticky cake down with a few gulps of tea, “why did you work so hard to find me?” Surely she wasn’t worth all that…

“Told yeh,” Hagrid said. “I’m a great friend o’ yer parents. Knew ‘em from yer age, worked with ‘em against You-Know-Who once they was grown.”

“Against who?” 

Hagrid sighed. “Ah. I s’pose that’s as good a place as any ter begin… There was this dark wizard, see. Oh, about twenty years back or so. Started lookin’ fer followers — got ‘em, too, o’ course. Somehow, they always do. This wizard had gone bad. Bad as you can go. Worse, even. His name was…” Hagrid’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. “Sorry. I don’ like sayin’ it.”

“Could you write it down?” Nella suggested.

“Nah,” said Hagrid gruffly. “Can’t spell it. An’ yeh’ve got ter know, I reckon. His name was V-voldemort.” He shivered and sipped some more tea. “Now, folks was scared. Still are, as a matter o’ fact — no one likes sayin’ the name, even now. Dark days, Nella. Didn’t know who ter trust. Some folks joined ‘im outta fear. Some wanted power. Others stood up ter ‘im, an’ he killed ‘em. Horribly. One o’ the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Dumbledore’s the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of, so he started gatherin’ followers of his own. Folks brave enough to stand an’ fight, when it came ter it, or protect those as couldn’t do fer themselves. Yer parents were some o’ the best. Head boy an’ girl at Hogwarts in their day! Worked at Dumbledore’s right hand, they did! I reckon that’s why You-Know-Who decided ter kill ‘em. He turned up in the village where you was livin’, on Halloween ten years ago, an’ — an’ —“

Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very large, purple handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn. “Sorry,” he said, “but it’s that sad. Nicer people yeh couldn’ find. Anyway… You-Know-Who killed em’. An’ then — this is the real myst’ry of the thing — he tried ter kill you, too. Ever wondered how yeh got that mark on yer forehead? That’s no ordinary cut. That’s what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh. But fer whatever reason, it didn’ work on yeh, an’ that’s why yer famous, Nella. No one ever lived after he decided to kill ‘em. He’d killed some o’ the best witches an’ wizards of the age — the McKinnons, The Bones, the Prewetts, not ter mention yer folks! But you was jus’ a baby, an’ you lived.”

Nella was barely breathing. She saw in her mind’s eye the blinding flash of green light that she’d always taken to be the car crash that had supposedly killed her parents, but this time, for the first time in her life, it was accompanied by a high, cruel laugh.

“Somethin’ ‘bout you undid him,” Hagrid continued. “Some say the killin’ curse rebounded and killed him instead. Codswallop, in my opinion! Dunno that he had enough human left in him to die. Others say he’s still out there, bidin’ his time, but I don’ believe it fer a second. Folks who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of ‘em came outta kinda trances. Don’ reckon they could’ve done if he still had any powers ter speak of. Most folks — an’ Dumbledore among ‘em — believe he’s out there somewhere, but lost his powers. Too weak ter carry on. Somethin’ about you wrecked him, Nella. Somethin’ he hadn’t counted on, an’ you ended the war that night. The Girl Who Lived. That’s why yer famous. That’s how I know yer a witch.”

But Nella still couldn’t believe it. She didn't think he was lying about her parents, but that didn't mean she had magic, and she couldn’t bear the thought of Hagrid finding out too late and turning all that earlier anger on her. She had to make him see. “But Hagrid,” she murmured, “I don’t — I-I’ve never done magic.”

Hagrid grunted unhappily and jerked his head at the closed bedroom door. “Course that lot wouldn’ want yeh ter think so. Never done strange things? Made things happen when you was scared or angry? Tha’s usually how it goes with young’uns. Accidents, mostly. I reckon yeh’ve been doin’ magic fer years, an’ they’ve been — what? Explainin’ it away? Ignorin’ it?”

Blaming her for it.

It was as though a lens suddenly slammed into focus in Nella’s mind. That snake at the zoo! She’d been feeling sorry for it, and Dudley had hit her… What if she really had vanished the glass? The horrible haircut that had regrown overnight. The shrinking sweater. Repaired dishes, vanishing weeds, healed bruises... Had she been doing magic all along? 

She looked up in surprise to see Hagrid beaming at her. “See?” he said. “Nella Potter, not a witch! You wait! Yeh’ll be right famous at Hogwarts!”

Chapter Text

If Nella’s reception at Hogwarts was going to be anything like what she received upon entering the Leaky Cauldron, she wasn’t sure she’d survive it. 

Thankfully, Hagrid had taken her reluctance to shake hands with the first few strangers as an endearing sort of shyness, and the others had followed suit. Tucked into his side with his enormous hand warm on her shoulder as she was introduced to strange witches and wizards from all over the country, Nella felt safer than she could ever remember feeling before. Of course, she knew she wouldn’t have Hagrid forever by her side at school, but hopefully by then, at least her hand would have healed enough that she wouldn’t have to hide it.

“Alright ladies and gents,” rasped the old bartender in his creaky voice when Doris Crockford pushed back to the front of the queue for a fourth introduction. “Your drinks’re gettin’ warm, and your food’s gettin’ cold. Let’s leave Miss Potter to her shopping, yeah?”

In the dingy courtyard behind the pub, they found a pale young man just raising his wand to point at one of the bricks in the far wall. 

“Professor Quirrell!” Hagrid strode forward.

The man jumped and turned, and beneath the enormous purple turban he wore, Nella could see his eye twitching. He offered a tentative smile. “Oh! Hello, Hagrid. And Miss P-Potter. C-can’t t-tell you how p-p-pleased I am to meet you. I hope you d-didn’t think m-m-me rude for leaving. It was a b-bit overwhelming in there.”

“Nella, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts,” Hagrid explained. He shifted so his hand was at Nella’s back, instead of her shoulder, and she understood that she was to make a good first impression.

“What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?” Nella asked politely.

“D-Defense Against the D-Dark Arts,” he muttered, as though the subject terrified him. “N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-Potter?” He laughed nervously and offered another of his shy smiles, and Nella did the same. “You’ll be g-getting all your supplies, I suppose? I’ve g-got to pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself.”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t know we’d need so many things to learn magic.”

Quirrell laughed again and twisted his wand between his fingers anxiously. “Yes, well, there’s a lot m-more to m-magic, you’ll find, than w-waving a m-magic w-wand.”

“W-were you about to do magic, sir?” Nella asked, then blushed at her eagerness. 

Quirrell, however, seemed flattered. “Y-yes. I was. W-would you l-like to see?”

“Yes, please!” 

He turned and tapped his wand three times on a well-worn brick above the dustbin. The brick quivered. A small hole appeared in the middle, and Nella watched as it melted away. Neighboring bricks wriggled and rolled and folded themselves out of the way, as though trying to avoid the same fate, and within seconds, Nella, Hagrid, and Professor Quirrell were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, through which they could see a cobbled street twisting and turning out of view.

Hagrid grinned down at her. “Welcome to Diagon Alley.”

Professor Quirrell smiled at Nella’s amazement. “Sometimes it is as simple as w-waving a w-wand,” he admitted, a little sheepishly.

Nella enjoyed walking down the busy street and listening to the two wizards chatting over her head — the latest Ministry blunder, a new book on dragons Hagrid had been reading, the price of Potions ingredients driving a professor called Snape to distraction… Nella turned her head in every direction, trying not to miss any of the strange little shops and trusting Hagrid to do the steering with the hand still resting heavily on her shoulder. 

She saw shops selling cauldrons, robes, telescopes, parchment and quill pens, glimmering potion bottles, and sleepily hooting owls. Once again, she was struck with the awful fear that this was only a dream, and that she would wake up any minute with her stomach aching in the dark of her cupboard. Upon reflection, however, she realized that she’d rather have even the dream than nothing, and so she decided to enjoy it while it lasted.

Professor Quirrell accompanied them as far as an enormous bookstore called Flourish and Blotts, where he wished them a pleasant day and promised to see Nella at the start of term feast, though he sounded almost apologetic about it. 

“Is he always that nervous?” Nella asked Hagrid as they made their way on down the street. 

“Oh, yeah. Always been a bit timid, Quirrell, even in school. He’s taught Muggle Studies  fer years now, but always been interested in the Dark Arts. Creatures, mostly. Used ter come down ter my cabin fer tea an’ a chat. Brilliant mind. Then he announced he wanted the Defense job, took a year off fer ‘practical experience,’ an’ now look at him! They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, an’ there was a rumor ‘bout a nasty bit o’ business with a hag… Never been the same since. Hardly been ter see me since he’s been back. Scared of the students, scared of ‘is own subject…”

Nella’s heart was starting to race again. Vampires, hags… “What about goblins?” she squeaked. “Didn’t you say there were goblins at Gringotts?”

Hagrid patted her on the shoulder in what she was sure he meant to be a reassuring way. It nearly made her knees buckle. “If yer polite and mind yer business, yeh’ll never go wrong with goblins. Proud folk, is all. Don’ like wizards meddlin’ where they shouldn’t. Can’t say as I blame ‘em, ter be honest. Ministry gets itself tangled in all manner of things they’d do better ter leave well alone. Ah. Here we are — Gringotts!”

They had reached an enormous white building that towered over the rest of the alley. Nella gulped and couldn’t stop herself pressing closer into Hagrid’s side at the sight of what had to be a goblin, standing in a scarlet and gold uniform beside the heavy bronze doors.

“Don’ worry,” he said quietly. 

Nella swallowed hard and made herself step away again. He’d told her it would be alright. She didn’t want to upset him by implying she didn’t believe him. The goblin’s dark eyes followed her as they passed through the great bronze doors and found themselves standing in front of a set of silver ones. Nella shivered as she read the words engraved upon them: 

Enter, stranger, but take heed 
Of what awaits the sin of greed, 
For those who take, but do not earn, 
Must pay most dearly in their turn. 
So if you seek beneath our floors 
A treasure that was never yours, 
Thief, you have been warned, beware 
Of finding more than treasure there. 

“Like I said earlier, yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it,” Hagrid said.

A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors, and they found themselves in an enormous hall of brilliantly polished stone. It reminded Nella of the London cathedral she’d visited last year on a school trip, only she couldn’t imagine even Dudley and his friends being bored here. Long, high desks ran down both sides of the hall, covered with stacks of gold coins, heaps of precious gems, fabulous jewelry on velvet-covered stands, and she even spotted what looked like a pile of medieval weaponry at the far end of one desk.  Witches and wizards of every description milled around the hall or waited in queues for their turn at the desks, while more goblins made notes in enormous ledgers, or inspected items with tiny magnifying lenses, or whisked witches or wizards or whole armloads of treasure in or out of the hall through the many doors along the walls.

Hagrid led Nella to a desk with a short queue, and Nella forced herself to stay calm by counting her breaths along with a nearby goblin methodically stacking coins into neat columns on a silver tray.

“Mornin’,” Hagrid said when it was their turn at the desk.

“Good morning,” the goblin said in a voice as dry as sandpaper. 

“We’ve come ter take some money outta Miss Nella Potter’s vault.”

“You have her key, sir?”

“Ah. Got it here somewhere,” said Hagrid. “Just a sec.” 

Nella watched in horror as he started emptying his pockets, scattering broken dog biscuits, rusty nails, and a live dormouse onto the goblin’s book of numbers. The goblin’s nose wrinkled in disgust, and Nella darted forward to recapture the dormouse. 

“S-sorry, sir,” she whispered, clutching the dormouse in her cupped hands against her chest. She didn’t know exactly how goblins felt about mice, but the look he’d given it had been too reminiscent of the one Aunt Petunia gave the spiders in Nella’s cupboard. “I—“

“Got it!” Hagrid held up a tiny golden key. 

The goblin inspected it closely, then peered down his long nose at Nella. “That seems to be in order,” he said.

“I’ve also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore,” said Hagrid with obvious relish. “Abou’ the you-know-what in vault 713.”

The goblin read the letter every bit as carefully as he’d inspected Nella’s key, and then he subjected Hagrid to the same scrutiny. “Very well,” he said at last. “Griphook!”

Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back into his pockets and retaken custody of the remarkably tame dormouse, Griphook led them through one of the mysterious doors. Nella expected more polished stone, but she was surprised to find herself in a narrow stone passageway lit by flaming torches.

“What’s the you-know-what in vault 713?” Nella asked as they followed Griphook around several twists and turns that sloped steeply downwards.

“Can’t tell yeh that,” said Hagrid seriously. “Hogwarts business, that is. Dumbledore’s trusted me, an’ it’s more’n my job’s worth ter tell yeh.”

Finally, they arrived at a sort of miniature railway platform. Griphook whistled, and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks to meet them. They climbed in — Hagrid with some difficulty — and they were off, hurtling through a maze of twisting tunnels. Hagrid closed his eyes against the stinging, cold air, but Nella kept hers wide open. Griphook didn’t seem to be steering, and she didn’t trust the cart not to crash or throw them off or something. They flew past an underground lake, and a cavern full of enormous crystals, and once, she thought she saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was one of the dragons Hagrid had mentioned on their boat ride that morning, but she was too late.

When the cart stopped at last beside a small door, Hagrid stumbled out, looking very green, and had to lean against the wall to remain upright.

“H-Hagrid?” Nella asked. “Are you alright?” 

“I hate them infernal carts,” he mumbled. “Jus’ give me a minute.”

“Y-you could try a humbug,” Nella offered tentatively. “I-I saw them in one of your pockets this morning, when I was paying that owl. M-mint sometimes settles my stomach if I’m feeling ill.” 

There had long been a patch of peppermint in Mrs Number Two’s garden on Privet Drive, and Nella had very carefully avoided pulling up the volunteers that grew up on the Dursley’s side of the fence. She had to pinch them off very close to the ground when she was sent out to weed the flower beds, but for most of the summer, she had a steady supply of leaves to chew when her stomach bothered her.

“Er, yeah,” said Hagrid, already fumbling in his pockets. “I’ll give it a try. Thanks, Nella.”

“Your vault, Miss Potter,” said Griphook, startling her. He pushed open the door, and Nella gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins, columns of silver, heaps of bronze. 

“All yers,” said Hagrid, smiling at her astonishment.

The Dursleys couldn’t have known about this. They’d have had it from her in a heartbeat. How often had they complained about how expensive Nella was? Nella thought of the horrible secondhand clothes, the meals she so often wasn’t allowed to eat, the lightbulb they’d taken out of her cupboard when she was eight because they were tired of her running up the electricity bill. And all this time, she’d had a small fortune sitting here, deep under London. Her eyes stung. It wasn’t fair. 

Then she felt stupid. It wasn’t like they’d have shared with her if they’d gotten their hands on her money anyway. Dudley had never gone hungry a day in his life. And no one complained about the cost of his computer games or the two televisions that were on constantly in the summers. 

“We’ll just take enough fer yer first year,” Hagrid said, the mint humbug clicking against his teeth as he spoke. 

“Hagrid,” she said quietly as he loaded several handfuls of coins into a small bag for her, “how long is a school year at Hogwarts?”

“Near on ten months,” he answered, passing her the bag. “Don’ worry. We’ll get yer school things today, an’ yeh’ll need a bit o’ spendin’ money fer the train, an’ some students like ter owl order little Christmas presents an’ birthday gifts fer their friends, but that’s it, really. In yer third year yeh’ll be allowed to visit the village a few times, an’ yeh’ll need spendin’ money fer that, o’ course. But don’ worry, Nella. Yeh’ve more’n enough ter see yeh through, long as yeh don’ go in fer solid gold cauldrons an’ the like. We’ll keep the rest safe fer yeh.”

Nella nodded, relieved — though not for the reasons Hagrid imagined. Things would be different at Hogwarts, she realized. There was a uniform on her list, and she had the money to buy it, so there wouldn’t be any awful gray rags on her first day. Dudley wouldn’t be there to bully her out of the best parts of her school lunches, either. She’d be able to buy the things she needed, and she’d be taken care of for at least ten months out of the year. Summers were always the hardest on Privet Drive, but she could handle those, especially if she’d had ten months to fortify herself.

“Now,” Hagrid was saying, “the gold ones are called galleons. Seventeen silver sickles to a galleon, and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle. It’s easy enough.” He turned to Griphook. “Vault 713, please, and can we go a bit more slowly?”

“One speed only,” said Griphook.

Hagrid grimaced and popped another humbug into his mouth. “Go on then.”

They were going even deeper now, and the corners became sharper, and the air grew ever colder. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Nella leaned over the side to try and see what was down at the dark bottom. Hagrid groaned and pulled her back by the scruff of her neck, and Nella took the hint to sit still.

“Stand back,” Griphook ordered as they clambered out of the cart in front of Vault 713. He stroked one long finger down the center of the door, and it simply melted away. “If anyone but a Gringotts Goblin tried that, they’d be sucked through the door and trapped in there,” said Griphook in response to Nella’s quiet gasp of surprise.

“H-how often do you check if anyone’s inside?” Nella asked.

“About once every ten years,” said Griphook with a rather nasty grin.

Nella smiled awkwardly and craned her neck to see what sort of fabulous treasure warranted this level of security — fabulous jewels or some ancient treasure, surely. But at first she thought the vault was empty. Then Hagrid hurried forward and picked up a grubby little package wrapped in brown paper that was lying on the floor. He tucked it into a pocket deep inside his coat. Nella longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask. 

One more wild cart ride later, and they stood blinking in the bright sunlight outside Gringotts. Hagrid was looking a little green again, though less than he had before the humbugs.

“Did the mint help at all?” Nella asked worriedly. 

“Y-yeah,” Hagrid managed, swallowing hard. He smiled queasily. “Yeh saved my life with that trick. Yeh really did. I’d be a righ’ mess otherwise. I jus’ need a bit o’ fresh air, I think. Listen, Nella, if yeh feel alrigh’ goin’ in ter get yer uniform on yer own — Madam Malkin’ll take good care of yeh.” He nodded at a shop called Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. “I reckon Tom’ll have a bit of a pick-me-up fer me back at the Leaky Cauldron ter set me right.”

“Er, yeah,” Nella said quickly. “That’s fine. Are you sure you’re going to be alright on your own?” She winced at the transparency of her ploy, but Hagrid just chuckled and clapped her on the shoulder again.

“Yer sweet,” he said. “I dunno when’s the las’ time I had someone lookin’ after me.” He chuckled again. “Nah, you go get yer uniform. Jus’ tell Madam Malkin you’re headed to Hogwarts, an’ she’ll know what ter do. I’ll pop up ter the pub, an’ I’ll be back ‘fore you can miss me, good as new.”

So Nella entered Madam Malkin’s shop alone, feeling nervous.

Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch, dressed all in mauve. “Hogwarts, dear?” she asked, when Nella started to speak. “Got the lot here — another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.” 

In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch in lilac fluttered around him, pinning up a set of long black robes. He stared at Nella with a bored expression as Madam Malkin stood her on a stool next to him and had her slip off Dudley’s enormous sweatshirt. The t-shirt underneath didn’t fit her any better, but she supposed it was at least less bulky fabric to get in the way. Her embarrassment over the state of her clothes was only mitigated by her excitement over having a set of clothes that actually fit her. No elephant skin for her first day of school!

“Oh!” Madam Malkin exclaimed suddenly. “Whatever happened to your hand, dear?”

“I caught in a door the other day,” Nella said at once, having already thought up this excuse, just in case. “It looks worse than it is.” She tried to smile at the witch, but she could feel the boy’s eyes on her. The witch seemed satisfied, at least, and she slipped a long robe like the boy’s over Nella’s head. She set at once to pinning up the hem.

“Hello,” said the boy. “Hogwarts, too?” He didn't sound remotely interested.

“Yes,” said Nella.

“My father’s next door buying my books, and mother’s up the street looking at wands,” he said. “Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don’t see why first years can’t have their own. I may bully my father into getting me one, and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”

Nella was reminded of Dudley. She hummed an acknowledgment, hoping he’d take it as a sign she didn’t really want to talk to him.

“Have you got your own broom?”

“No,” said Nella.

“Play quidditch at all?” 

“No,” Nella said again, wondering what on earth quidditch could be.

“I do — Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you’ll be in yet?”

“No,” said Nella, feeling more stupid by the minute. Why was he still talking to her? It couldn’t possibly be fun for him.

“Well,” the boy mused, a thoughtful look crossing his face for a moment, which at least raised him above Dudley in her estimation, “I suppose no one really knows until they get there, do they? But I know I’ll be in Slytherin. All our family have been.”

Nella hummed again, wishing she could be a bit more interesting. She had no idea what the boy was talking about, and it was slowly dawning on her how little she knew about her new life. Her eyes were prickling again at the thought of how many more conversations like this she had ahead of her. Never mind she wouldn’t have Dudley there to scare people into hating her. They were going to think she was stupid all on their own.

The second witch finished pinning the boy’s robes. She waved her wand, and with a great flutter of fabric, the pins vanished, leaving perfectly tailored robes behind. “That’s you done, then,” she told the boy cheerfully as she whisked them off him. She cast another charm to add two more identical sets of black robes to a pile she made on the stool, along with the cloak, hat, and leathery gloves that were also on the supply list.

The boy accepted the loaded brown shopping bag she handed him a moment later, but he didn’t move toward the door. Instead, he stood watching as Madam Malkin pinned up Nella’s sleeves, careful around her injured hand.

“My father will fix that when he gets here,” the boy said, eyeing her hand with a frown.

“It’s fine,” Nella said quickly. “Really. It only looks bad.”

“It’s no trouble,” the boy said with a sort of careless finality. “You look like you could use some looking after, and he won’t mind. Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead,” Nella said shortly. She didn’t feel much like going into the matter.

“Oh, sorry,” said the boy automatically, not sounding sorry at all. “So do you live with your grandparents or something? My grandmother clean forgot she was a witch towards the end. Is that why no one has fixed your hand for you?”

“I —“

“Haven’t you finished yet, Draco?” A tall man who, judging by his blond hair and the bored expression on his face, could only be the boy’s father, came around the last row of clothing racks. He had a brown parcel in one hand and a cane with a snake on the handle in the other.

“I’m Draco, by the way,” the boy said quickly.

“Nella.”

“I’ve just been talking to Nella, Father,” he told the man. “She’s hurt her hand, and I told her you could fix it for her.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” Nella said as Madam Malkin finished with the pins and performed the tailoring charm on her robes. As soon as the robe was off, Nella stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans, forcing herself to smile.

A strange expression passed over Draco’s father’s face as he took in Nella’s hand-me-down clothes. Her heart threatened to climb into her throat. He was paying her too much attention. “Don’t be silly,” he said after a moment. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and Nella was not reassured. He set down the parcel and pulled a wand out of the top of his cane. “It’s no trouble at all.”

“I told you. Come on,” Draco said, grabbing Nella’s arm and tugging her down off the stool. He pulled her injured hand out of her pocket with surprising care, and his father tutted as he took hold of her wrist.

“Dear me. Whatever happened here?”

“I caught it in a door,” Nella lied again, feeling panicky now. She felt trapped by the two strangers now holding onto her, and she knew Uncle Vernon would be furious with her for drawing this much attention. She wished fervently that Hagrid was there.

“And you’ve broken your glasses, too. Oh, poor thing.” Draco’s father moved her bangs aside with the tip of his wand.

“I-I’m very clumsy,” Nella stammered.

“Well, you’ll have to be more careful in future, Miss Potter. We can’t have anything unfortunate happening to the Girl Who Lived.”

Draco looked shocked. “You didn’t say you were Nella Potter!”

“I—“

“Now, Draco,” said his father. “Perhaps she didn’t want the attention. I’m sure she must be tired of it by now.” He tapped his wand on her aching knuckles, and there was a soft pop, and the bruising and swelling vanished, along with the pain. He tapped her glasses next, and they, too, were suddenly whole. “There now, my dear. Good as new.”

“I told you he could fix you up,” Draco crowed triumphantly.

Nella’s reply was interrupted by a loud tapping on the front window of the shop. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Nella and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn’t come in.

“Who’s that?” Draco demanded.

“That’s Hagrid,” Nella said, pleased to know at least one thing he didn’t. “He works at Hogwarts.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of him,” said Draco. “Isn’t he some sort of servant or something?”

“He’s the gamekeeper,” said Nella defensively. She didn’t like Draco’s superior tone one bit.

“And I’m sure he is needed back at his post,” said Draco’s father condescendingly. “We’d best not keep him waiting. For both orders.” He tossed a handful of gold coins carelessly on the counter in front of Madam Malkin and gestured for Nella to lead the way out of the shop. “Shall we?”

Outside, the adults’ greeting was coldly polite.

“Malfoy.”

“Hagrid. I’m surprised to see you away from the school this time of year. Surely there is much to be done ahead of the students’ arrival?”

“Aye, but somebody’s gotta bring Nella here ter get her school things. This’d be yer boy then? Startin’ school, too?”

“This is Draco,” Nella said, stepping closer to Hagrid — not quite touching him, though she secretly hoped he’d pull her into his side again like he had done in the Leaky Cauldron. Even though Draco’s father had made her hand feel better, he exuded a cold distance that made alarm bells go off in her head. He was like a walking mask, and he gave very few clues as to what was going on underneath. That was dangerous. “Draco, this is Hagrid.”

Draco looked apprehensive, but he nodded in greeting. “Well,” he said to Nella without taking his eyes off Hagrid, “I’ll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose.”

“Yeah. It was nice to meet you. Thank you for your help, Mr. Malfoy,” she added politely.

“Of course, Miss Potter,” Mr. Malfoy said, staring at Nella again with that strange look on his face. “Hagrid.”

They watched the Malfoys drift off up the street, and Hagrid passed Nella an ice cream cone. “What’d Lucius Malfoy help yeh with?” he asked after a few minutes of companionable slurping, his tone a little bit odd.

“Oh, I-I hurt my hand a bit,” Nella said, carefully not specifying exactly when she’d actually hurt it. “Draco asked his father to heal it for me. And then he paid for my uniform with Draco’s as we were coming out.”

Hagrid grunted. “Well, it was good of ‘im ter fix yer hand, an’ all.”

“H-he made me a little uncomfortable,” Nella admitted in a small voice, not sure where things stood between the two wizards and not wanting to offend Hagrid. “It’s hard to know what he’s thinking.”

“Yeah, well, the Malfoys are a diff’rent sort. Lucius Malfoy was one o’ the firs’ ter come back ter our side after the war. Claimed he’d been enchanted. Keeps ‘is nose clean these days — sponsorin’ a new wing at the hospital, servin’ on the Board o’ Governors at Hogwarts… True, yeh never can be quite sure what ‘e’s thinkin’, though, Lucius. He’s not stupid by any stretch, an’ he never does a thing without knowin’ what it’s worth. Prob’ly that’s all yeh were catchin’ — wanted ter get in good with yeh on account of yer fame. His sort’s always attracted ter power. Still, best keep an eye on that boy o’ his, just in case.”

Nella nodded. “Hagrid, what’s quidditch?” she asked after a minute. 

“Blimey, Nella! I keep forgettin’ how little yeh know — not knowin’ ‘bout quidditch!”

“Sorry,” Nella said dejectedly. 

“Nah — I’m sorry,” said Hagrid quickly. “Not yer fault. Quidditch is our sport. Wizard sport. Everyone follows it. Played up in the air on broomsticks, and there’s four balls. Er — kinda hard ter explain the rules, but it’s a great game! The school has four house teams, an’ everyone watches the games together!”

“And one of the houses is Slytherin?” Nella guessed.

Hagrid frowned. “S’pose that Draco mentioned Slytherin, did he?”

“Yeah. He asked if I knew my house, then told me his whole family had been in Slytherin, but I didn’t really understand what that means.”

“Means yeh’ve got another reason ter keep an eye on that boy,” growled Hagrid. “There’s four houses at Hogwarts — Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. An’ there’s not a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one, and loads of ‘is followers, too.”

“Vol — Sorry. You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?”

“Years an’ years ago,” said Hagrid. 

“So, how do you know what house you’re in?” Nella asked. “Draco said his whole family have been in Slytherin, so he was sure he would be, too.”

“Well, family’s only part of it. Each house is known fer summat — bravery, smarts, loyalty, cunning. They put kids in the house that fits ‘em best.”

“But what if you’re not brave or smart or loyal or cunning?” Nella asked worriedly. 

“Don’ worry. Everyone finds a place at Hogwarts. Look at me! Even after bein’ expelled in my third year, Dumbledore foun’ me a spot ter stay an’ make my home. Come on — lots o’ shoppin’ ter do.”

They entered a shop next to Madam Malkin’s called Amanuensis Quills to buy quills, ink, and parchment. Nella brightened when she found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote, and Hagrid talked her into buying it, assuring her once again that she had plenty of money in her vault.

“It’s not fer school work, mind,” he warned her as they made their way to the bookshop  where they’d left Professor Quirrell. “Yer professors’ll want plain black. But I wouldn’ mind a rainbow letter from time ter time, an’ I expect yer friends’ll like ‘em, too, come summer.”

Flourish and Blotts looked huge from the outside, but the inside of the shop was so packed with books that it felt tiny. Hagrid barely fit between some of the shelves, and he called to one of the booksellers to fetch Nella’s school books while they waited by the front window. 

Their next stop was a wizarding equipment shop called Wiseacre’s. Hagrid helped her get a cauldron, a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients, and a collapsible brass telescope. 

Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, like if the school trash bins had been moved into Mrs. Figg’s living room. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Nella, Nella herself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes at five Knuts a scoop. 

Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Nella's list again. "Just yer wand left! Oh yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present." 

Nella felt herself go red. "You brought that cake. And we had ice cream. You don't have to —" 

"I know I don', but tha’s not what presents are abou’. I’d like ter get yeh somethin’ nice. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. That way, yeh’ll have a’ least one friend goin’ ter Hogwarts with yeh. Now, yeh’d be laughed at if yeh brought a toad — they went outta fashion ages ago. An’ cats make me sneeze. How’d yeh feel about an owl? They’re dead useful — carry yer mail an’ everythin’!”

 Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Nella now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. She couldn't stop stammering her thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell. 

"Don' mention it," said Hagrid gruffly, looking thoughtfully at her ill-fitting clothes. "Don' expect you've had a lotta presents from them Dursleys.” He pulled her into his side for a quick hug. “Things’ll be differen’ now, Nella. Yeh’ll see.” He released her and consulted her school supply list. “Now. Jus’ yer wand left, an’ that means Ollivander’s — best place fer wands, an’ yeh’ve gotta have the best wand.”

A magic wand... this was what Nella had been really looking forward to. 

The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window. A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sat on to wait. Nella felt strangely as though she had entered a very strict library; she swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to her and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of her neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic. 

"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Nella jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair. An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop. 

"H-hello," said Nella awkwardly. 

"Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Nella Potter." It wasn't a question. He smiled. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work." 

 Ollivander moved closer to Nella. Nella wished he would blink.

"Your father, on the other hand — you have his coloring — he favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it — it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course." 

Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Nella were almost nose to nose. Nella could see herself reflected in those misty eyes. 

"And that's where..." Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Nella's forehead with a long, white finger. She couldn’t seem to make herself move. She didn’t feel like she was in danger, exactly, but she wished he’d move away, or look away, or something. It was like standing under a spotlight in a very crowded auditorium, even though Hagrid was the only other person around. "I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said in nearly a whisper. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do...." He shook his head and then, to Nella's relief, spotted Hagrid over her shoulder. "Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again.... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?" 

"It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid. 

"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.

 "Er -- yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly. 

"But you don't use them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply. 

"Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Nella noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke. 

"Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now, Miss Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?" 

"Er — well, I'm right-handed," said Nella, suddenly very, very thankful for Draco and his father. 

"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Nella from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round her head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Miss Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another witch or wizard's wand." 

Nella suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between her nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes. 

"That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Miss Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. just take it and give it a wave." 

Nella took the wand and, feeling foolish, waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of her hand almost at once, making Nella flinch.

"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try —"

 Nella tried — but she had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander. 

"No, no! Here — ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out." 

Nella tried. And tried. She had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair. Nella felt sure she was doing something wrong, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become. She had a horrible vision of coming to the last wand in the shop and Mr. Ollivander turning those pale eyes on her again, telling her there’d been a mistake. She wasn’t a witch after all.

"Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere — I wonder, now — yes, why not — unusual combination… Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple." 

Nella took the wand. She felt a sudden warmth in her fingers. She raised the wand above her head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air, and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light across the faded walls.

Hagrid whooped and clapped, and Mr. Ollivander cried, “Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed! Oh, very good! Well, well, well… how curious… how very curious…” He put Nella’s wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering to himself. “Curious… curious…”

“Sorry,” said Nella, “but what’s curious?”

Mr. Ollivander fixed Nella with his pale stare once more, and she immediately regretted asking. “I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Miss Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother… why, its brother gave you that scar.”

Nella swallowed.

“Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember — or in this case the witch. I think we must expect great things from you, Miss Potter. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great.”

Nella shivered. She wasn’t sure she liked Mr. Ollivander much more than she’d liked Mr. Malfoy. She paid seven gold galleons for her wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.

The late afternoon sun was sinking fast as Nella and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley. Hagrid tapped the wall with his umbrella, but this time, Nella couldn’t feel amazed. She didn’t speak at all as they walked down the road. She barely even noticed how much people were staring at them on the Underground, loaded down as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the owl asleep in her cage on Nella’s lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station… Nella only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped her on the shoulder.

“Got time fer a bite ter eat before yer train leaves,” he said, pointing to a little diner across the road. He bought Nella a hamburger, and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Nella nibbled hers, more out of the knowledge that she’d be hungry later at the Dursleys’, than because she was hungry now. 

“Yeh alright, Nella?” Hagrid asked after a few minutes. “Yer awful quiet. What’s botherin’ yeh?”

Nella wasn’t sure how to explain in a way that wouldn’t sound ungrateful. She’d just had the best birthday of her life, and yet… “Everyone thinks I’m special,” she said at last, the words pulled from her like a string. “All those people at the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander, even my wand! But I don’t know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I didn’t even know what happened to my parents until last night! I’m famous, and I can’t even remember what I’m famous for! And I don’t feel brave or-or cunning or —“ She dropped her hamburger and put her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Hagrid,” she mumbled. “Today’s been wonderful. I just —“

Hagrid leaned across the table and pulled her hands gently away from her face. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows, he had a very kind smile. “Yer nervous. But don’ you worry, Nella. Yeh’ll learn fast enough. Everyone starts a’ the beginnin’ at Hogwarts, and plenty o’ other kids come from muggle families. Yeh’ll be fine. An’ no matter what happens, yeh’ll have me an’ yer owl there with yeh, an’ that’s a sight better than some kids get startin’ out. Yeh’ll have a great time at Hogwarts. I did — still do, if I’m bein’ honest! Yeh’ll be jus’ fine.”

Ten minutes later, Hagrid helped Nella onto the train that would take her back to Little Whinging and handed her an envelope. “Now, I’ll send an owl on ahead ter let yer relatives know to pick you up at the station. An’ this is yer ticket for Hogwarts. First o’ September, King’s Cross. It’s all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl. She’ll know where ter find me.”

“H-Hagrid,” said Nella, struck by a sudden, horrible thought. “C-could you take my owl with you? Just until school starts? I-it’s just… Aunt Petunia doesn’t like animals, and I didn’t get permission to get a pet…”

Hagrid frowned. “They were pretty angry las’ nigh’,” he mused, but he didn’t know the half of it. Nella was in for it when she got home, and she didn’t want her poor owl to get caught in the crossfire. “She can stay with me,” he said finally. “Don’ want ter give ‘em anythin’ else ter be cross about. But you listen — I meet the firs’ years off the train at Hogsmeade. If yer not with ‘em, I’m comin’ for yeh, an’ them Dursleys’ll have more’n a pig’s tail ter worry about. You get any guff from that uncle o’ yers, an’ you tell him tha’ from me. Understand?”

Nella grinned and nodded, relief flooding her. She was going to Hogwarts, one way or another. She just had to make it until then. On an impulse, she skipped forward and threw her arms around Hagrid’s middle. “Thanks, Hagrid — for everything!”

“Bah,” he said, though he hugged her back. “See yeh in a few weeks.”

Chapter Text

The car ride from the train station was painfully silent, and Nella spent it counting her breaths, trying to stay calm. She knew the only reason Uncle Vernon wasn’t ripping into her already was that he was waiting to do it in the privacy of his own home, where there could be no interference. It was just like that horrible ride back from the zoo on Dudley’s birthday — he’d been quiet then, too, unwilling to show his temper in front of Piers, but the welts from his belt had kept her home from school for four days that time. 

It was going to be worth it, she told herself over and over again. Whatever he had in store for her, it was just payment in advance for ten months without the Dursleys. Ten months when they couldn’t touch her. And even if the Dursleys tried to stop her going to Hogwarts, Hagrid would come to get her. He’d promised. He had come for her on a rock in the sea in the middle of a thunderstorm. Privet Drive was nothing.

Arriving home, Uncle Vernon spoke at last. “Stay,” he barked, then locked her in the car. 

She watched as he lugged her heavy trunk into the house, thinking hard. She’d sent her owl away to keep her safe, but what about the rest of her school things? Books and robes could be repaired or replaced, but her wand… She should have sent it with Hagrid, too, though she couldn’t imagine what sort of reason she could possibly have given for that. Not having permission for a pet was at least reasonable.

She took a deep breath and ordered herself to focus. Hagrid might as well be on Mars for all the good he’d do her right this second. She needed to think of the options she did have. There was a loose floorboard under the bed in her room, and the mouse hole where she kept her stolen lightbulb in her cupboard, but she knew her aunt and uncle would lay into her well before sending her to bed without dinner. The wand was in her sweatshirt pocket now. They’d be sure to find it.

She could hide the wand in the car, under the seat or beneath the floor mat. But she would have to sneak back out to get it while the Dursleys were home, and the car door opening and shutting would be a dead giveaway. And Aunt Petunia was such an obsessive housekeeper that there was nowhere else in the house she could stash her wand either. 

She felt panicky tears prickling at her eyes, and she forced herself to take another measured breath. Panicking wouldn’t help her find a solution. She just had to be clever. There had to be a solution.

Her eyes landed on the enormous hydrangea bushes in front of the house. They’d hid her plenty of times. Surely they could hide a wand for a day or two. She quickly slid the wand from her pocket and into her sleeve as the front door opened again, and Uncle Vernon came stalking down the driveway to the car. 

“Out,” he growled, low and dangerous. 

Nella scurried ahead of her uncle toward the front of the house. Nella’s heart rate skyrocketed as she eyed the hydrangeas. This was such a bad idea. She was never going to get away with it, and even if she did — her plan would protect her wand, not her.

“Hurry up, girl.”

Blinking back panicked tears at what she was about to do, Nella swallowed hard and then deliberately slowed down so her uncle would push her. When he gave her shoulder an impatient shove, she deliberately tripped on the bottom step. She tumbled into the enormous hydrangea bush and threw one arm wide to be sure to hit the wasp nest she was always so careful to avoid while weeding. 

Her uncle roared as the angry insects came boiling up out of the bush. In the chaos, Nella managed to shake her wand out of her sleeve and wedge it between two branches before the stinging wasps forced her to stagger back, shielding her face with her arms. Uncle Vernon seized the shoulder of her sweatshirt and dragged her around the side of the house, swatting at wasps with his free hand.

“Vernon?” Aunt Petunia squawked in alarm as he hauled Nella into kitchen through the back door. He shoved her ahead of him and clutched at his face with both hands. Aunt Petunia swung her soapy frying pan to deal Nella a glancing blow to the shoulder. Her knees buckled with the pain, and she collapsed to the floor with a cry. “What did you do to him, you horrible little beast?” she shrieked, swinging again and narrowly missing Nella’s head. Uncle Vernon groaned, and she turned her attention fully on her husband, dropping the frying pan to try and pry his swelling hands away from his face.

Nella scooted beneath the kitchen table, clutching at her shoulder. “W-wasps,” she gasped. “I fell in the bushes out front.”

Aunt Petunia finally got Uncle Vernon to lower his hands, and Nella was for once very, very grateful for the miles of extra fabric she was always wearing. While she’d escaped the encounter with the wasps with only a few of the painful stings on her hands and a couple on one side of her face, her uncle looked to be made of welts. His hands, face, and neck were swelling rapidly.

“What did you do?” Aunt Petunia demanded again, rushing to the sink to wet a towel for his face.

Nella cringed and shrank further back under the table. They were going to kill her. Bad enough was bad enough, but, of course, she always had to go and make it worse. She’d only wanted to distract him, force him back for a few moments so she could hide the wand. She was so stupid! Too stupid to think things through. Too stupid to stay calm. Too cowardly to just grit her teeth and get through. She always made things worse, and that part was always her own fault. She brought it on herself, and she couldn’t undo it, because admitting to what she’d done would only make it worse yet. 

“Where’s your wand?” her aunt demanded, ushering Uncle Vernon into a chair.

Nella shook her head frantically, unable to speak.

“It wasn’t in your trunk, you little freak! Where is it?” she screeched.

“H-Hagrid has it,” Nella choked out. “I didn’t — It wasn’t m-magic. J-just wasps.”

“You’re a nasty little liar,” Aunt Petunia snarled, now pressing a bag of frozen peas to her husband’s face. “I know you did this! Where. Is. Your. Wand?”

“Hagrid has it,” Nella repeated, more desperately. “He wouldn’t let me have it. S-said I’m t-too young.”

“Liar! Your mother always had that stupid stick with her! Never went anywhere without it! Where’s yours?”

Uncle Vernon shoved his wife’s hands away and dropped to the floor, his red, knobbly, furious face filling Nella's vision. She choked back a scream as he grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her out from under the table. “Where is it, girl?” he demanded, pawing at her pockets with club-like hands. He held her down while Aunt Petunia stripped off her sweatshirt, then her t-shirt and jeans, leaving her shivering in her underthings on the cool kitchen tiles. They tore through the clothes, but of course, they found no wand.

“Hagrid has it, I swear! Please! It was just an accident! I don’t have my wand!”

Nella choked back another scream when her aunt dragged her up and over one of the kitchen chairs, and she heard the jingle of her uncle’s belt coming off. 

They didn’t like it when she screamed, so she babbled instead. She wove half-truths through her lies about student safety and new wand policies, to make them more believable and easier to remember. She told them about the Ministry of Magic, whose main job was to keep muggles from learning about magic. She told them what Professor Quirrell had said about learning a great deal more than how to wave a wand around. But no matter what she said, her aunt and uncle didn’t believe her.

Uncle Vernon’s belt left throbbing welts from her shoulders to her knees, but she repeated the story a million different ways, until her uncle’s arm tired at last, and her voice was a horrible, wet rasp.

***

Nella had expected to be locked up, either in her new bedroom, with its windows overlooking the backyard, or in the cupboard under the stairs, where she might put in her stolen lightbulb for a few hours in the middle of the night. Instead, she spent the rest of the week locked in the cramped wardrobe in her bedroom, where only a single chink of light between the doors showed whether it was day or night. Nella passed the long hours trying to remember a story one of her teachers had read to them once, about a magic wardrobe that held a door to another world. There was no such door in her wardrobe, but she imagined tapping the wood back with her wand and making it melt away like the bricks behind the Leaky Cauldron. But she didn't have her wand, and she didn't even know if it was alright. All she knew was that her aunt and uncle hadn't found it yet. 

In the mornings, Aunt Petunia would let her out to use the bathroom. In the evenings, Uncle Vernon would drag her out to demand her wand again. Her repaired glasses were broken again by Wednesday night, and by Saturday, Uncle Vernon was frustrated enough to hit her with the buckle of his belt, rather than the tail. The resulting gash across the side of Nella’s ribcage was bloody enough that Aunt Petunia had to break out the first aid kit, and she was allowed to sleep on the floor in her bedroom when trying to crawl back into the wardrobe made her cry uncontrollably.

“I find one spot of blood in those bedsheets, and you’ll be sorry,” her aunt had snapped as she packed away the butterfly sutures and gauze.

Lying on the floor hours after the sting of antiseptic had faded, Nella wasn’t even sure why she was so protective of the wand. It wasn’t like she could use it yet. And it certainly wasn’t doing her a bit of good out there in the flower bed. She supposed there was the very practical knowledge that she would never be able to convince her aunt and uncle of anything again, if she admitted to lying about the wand all this time, but it felt like more than that. 

The wand had chosen her, and she’d never been chosen before. 

The wand chooses the wizard.

It might have been some mystic nonsense of Mr. Ollivander’s, but when she remembered the sudden warmth that had flooded her fingertips when she'd picked up this wand, she couldn’t help believing it. It was like having a friend. Out of all the others she'd tried in Ollivander's shop, this wand had chosen her, and that made it her responsibility. It trusted her, when none of the others had. The idea of it, cold and dead, just a broken stick in her uncle’s meaty hands, made her feel every bit as ill as the sound of her uncle’s footsteps in the hall did. And one day, she would be able to use the wand. It would keep her safe, just like she was keeping it safe now. One day, they'd be safe together.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon unlocked her door instead of Aunt Petunia. The awful welts from the wasp stings had gone down at last, but his face, neck, and hands were still speckled with tiny pinprick scabs from their stingers. Nella flinched as her door bounced off the wall, but she was too bone-tired to do more than that.

“Get up, girl. Shower.”

Nella rose unsteadily, feeling lightheaded. She hadn’t had nearly enough to eat or drink this week, and she felt sure that if it went on like this much longer, she was going to wind up in A&E again. Then they’d really be angry. The doctors asked far too many questions for the Dursleys’ taste.

“Hurry up, girl!”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon. Sorry,” she mumbled, shuffling a little faster down the hall. He gave her ten minutes to shower and change, and then he dragged her downstairs and deposited her in a kitchen chair so Aunt Petunia could dress the wound on her ribs again with fresh gauze.

“You brought this all on yourself, girl,” Uncle Vernon declared. “If you were normal, we wouldn’t have to deal with all this freakish nonsense about wands and magic and whatnot.”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon,” Nella muttered, staring at her knees so he wouldn’t see the hope in her face. Usually, when he started in on lecturing like this, it meant he was winding down from his anger at last, and things would start improving in some way. “I’m so sorry for all the trouble.”

Uncle Vernon nodded. “You’d better be! You’ve been nothing but trouble all summer, girl! And you’ve been neglecting your chores for more than a week now!”

Nella ignored the spike of anger that shot up her spine at the unfairness of that accusation. If he was worried about chores, it meant he wasn’t planning to lock her back in the dark. If he wanted it to be all her fault, then so be it. She couldn’t stand another night in that wardrobe. “I-I know, Uncle Vernon. I’m sorry. W-what can I do to get started?”

“You can get rid of that bloody wasp nest, to start,” snarled her uncle, and Nella ducked her head again. “Then you can catch up on the weeding you’ve left go. All the flower beds, girl, and you won’t be eating until you’re done. And if I catch so much as a whiff of any of your strangeness, you’ll look back on this past week as a pleasant holiday. Understand?”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon.”

***

The rest of the month passed with numbing sameness. Her aunt or uncle would get her up early in the morning and issue a list of demands, which Nella would have to see to before she could eat dinner in the evening. She painted the garden fence, washed the car, cleaned the garage, scrubbed floors, beat rugs, hung out washing, dusted shelves, and weeded flower beds in unending monotony. 

It was boring, exhausting work, but she was mostly ignored while doing it, unless she needed correcting. Once, Aunt Petunia laid into her when she wasn’t quick enough getting the washing in before it rained, and twice Uncle Vernon lost patience with what he viewed as stupid questions and swatted her with whatever item was close at hand.

Dudley didn't bully her anymore. Instead, he seemed utterly terrified of her. If Nella happened to come into any room where he was, Dudley would invariably scream, clutch his bottom with both hands, and tear from the room. Nella considered this an improvement in their relationship, as long as her aunt and uncle didn't see it happen. They were not amused, and it usually resulted in Nella spending another night locked in her wardrobe for their precious Diddykins' peace of mind.

Every evening, Nella would help Aunt Petunia prepare dinner. Since her presence put Dudley off his eating, Nella was sent upstairs to shower while the family ate, and then, if she’d finished all the day’s chores to her aunt and uncle’s satisfaction, she would be permitted to come back downstairs and eat from the plate Aunt Petunia had set aside for her. Every night, before she fell into an exhausted, mercifully dreamless sleep, Nella would tick off another day on the piece of paper she kept under her pillow, counting down the days until September first. She only had to make it until then.

With two weeks to go, her bruises began to fade, and she dared hope she might start school with no injuries to hide for once. Nella reclaimed her wand from the bushes one afternoon when Aunt Petunia and Dudley had gone out shopping and Uncle Vernon was at work. It seemed no worse for wear, and she was relieved when her fingers warmed when she touched it, the same way they had in Ollivander’s shop. She whispered apologies and reassurances that things would be different at Hogwarts as she tucked it into the hollow space beneath the loose floorboard in her room, where she kept a bottle of water and a packet of increasingly stale soda crackers for nights when she wasn’t allowed to eat dinner. 

One week to go, and her aunt sneered at the ugly scar that looked to be taking the place of the wound on her ribs. Nella didn’t like looking at it. It looked like some wild animal had clawed her, and she began to have nightmares in which her uncle came after her with claws and fangs, a lashing belt for a tail.

Three days to go, and the Dursleys seemed to have at last run out of chores for Nella to do. Nella was permitted to leave the house, and she spent that first afternoon saying goodbye to the oak tree at the park. 

On the last day of August, she decided she really couldn’t put off asking her aunt and uncle about getting to King’s Cross Station any longer. She was sure that, as unhappy as they’d be to take her, they’d be much more upset over anything Hagrid might do to fetch her if she didn’t turn up on the school train. 

She knew it would be bad either way, but there was nothing else for it, so she went down to the living room, where the Dursleys were watching a quiz show on TV. She waited for a commercial break and then cleared her throat to let them know she was there. Dudley screamed and ran from the room, elbowing her hard in the ribs as he shoved through the doorway.

Nella winced in a mixture of pain and dread as Aunt Petunia’s pursed lips let her know she was on thin ice already. She took a deep breath. She had to be brave enough to avoid anything worse. Or at least try. She had a plan. “Er — Uncle Vernon?”

He grunted to show he was listening.

“Er — I n-need to be at King’s Cross tomorrow morning, to — er — to go to m-my school.”

Uncle Vernon grunted again, and his narrowed eyes slid from the TV screen to Nella.

“I know it would be b-best to — er — keep it quiet. I w-wouldn’t want Ha — anyone from there — sh-showing up here, you know? So, I thought, w-would it be alright i-if you gave me a lift?”

Grunt. Nella supposed that meant yes.

“Th-thank you.”

She was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke.

“Funny way to get to a magic school, the train… Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?”

Nella didn’t know what to say. 

“Where is this school, anyway?”

“I-I don’t know,” said Nella, realizing this for the first time with a little jolt of panic. “I j-just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o’clock.”

Her aunt and uncle stared.

“Platform what?” her uncle demanded.

“Nine and th-three-quarters?”

“Don’t talk rubbish, girl,” he growled, and Nella was very glad he was all the way across the room. “There is no platform nine and three-quarters.”

“I might be wrong,” Nella offered, eager to appease him. “I might have misread — I-I could double-check my ticket, so we w-wouldn’t waste a trip. It’s just in my school trunk.”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Uncle Vernon rose from the sofa and stomped over to tower over Nella, who didn't dare move. “I see what you’re after, girl,” he snarled, “and I won’t stand for it. You hear me? You’re not getting your freaky hands on anything in that trunk while you’re under my roof!”

Uncle Vernon seized Nella’s upper arm in a bruising grip and dragged her out of the living room, up the stairs, and all but threw her into her room, where she collided painfully with the desk.

“We’re going up to London tomorrow to have Dudley’s ruddy tail removed,” he said, much calmer now that Nella was on the floor, clutching her ribs. “King’s Cross is on our way, or I wouldn’t bother with your nonsense.” He leaned down and grabbed her ear, twisting viciously, and shoved her toward the wardrobe. “Now, I don’t want to lay eyes on you or hear another peep out of this room before we leave tomorrow, you understand me?”

“Y-yes, Uncle Vernon,” she whispered as he shut and latched the doors in her face. It was just one more night. She could manage one more night.

Chapter Text

Nella woke before sunrise the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. Worry over the car ride and the mysterious train platform churned in her stomach together with bright firecracker bursts of hope and an angry, gnawing hunger. 

She wished she’d at least been given the run of her room so she could start getting ready. With nothing to do but watch the chink of light between the doors glow, first pinkish, then orange, then bright yellow-white, she found herself imagining horrible scenarios in which the Dursleys refused to take her to catch the school train after all. In some versions, Hagrid came for her but couldn’t find her and went away again. In others, he did find her, stuffed in a wardrobe like an old umbrella, and she couldn’t possibly explain it in any way that would seem okay. Panic and shame washed over her in turn, like waves on a beach, and she didn’t know which was worse.

Finally, after what felt like hours, she heard the key in the deadbolt on her bedroom door. Nella went very still. Footsteps in her room. The creak and scrape of her dresser drawers. Footsteps leaving. A door slamming.

The deadbolt sliding home again.

Nella stifled a sob. They weren’t going to take her to catch the train. Hagrid would have to come and find her, if he even could, if the Dursleys didn’t find some way to keep him out. They were liars. They lied to the neighbors, and Nella’s teachers, and the handful of doctors who she’d had to see over the years. They could lie to Hagrid, and say she was pouting, that she didn’t want to go to Hogwarts, didn’t want to see him, and he’d go away again. Easy as that. 

Her ribs were pinching her where she’d hit the desk the day before, and the pain flared up with every ragged breath. Her back ached from a night spent sitting up against the wooden walls, and Nella tried to stretch, to twist and find a new position, but those walls were touching her, and she was sure they hadn’t been touching her quite so much even a few seconds ago, and she had to make a sound in case it was a mistake, in case the Dursleys had forgotten she was in there, but she didn’t dare make a sound in case it wasn't a mistake and that gave them an excuse to leave her in there, and she was certain the walls were getting closer now, and they were going to crush her, and Hagrid was going to find her later, and it wouldn’t matter whether the Dursleys lied to him or not because she’d be dead, pressed flat like a flower in the pages of a book, but her face would be all blotchy from crying, and he’d know she hadn’t been brave enough, smart enough, magic enough to help herself, and he’d know he’d made a mistake after all, and now she couldn’t feel her hands, and if the wardrobe didn’t crush her, she’d just disappear entirely, and her face was tingling, was surely being crushed like her chest, and there wasn’t enough air in the shrinking wardrobe, so much smaller than her cupboard, with no busy spiders for company in the dark — 

Soft, silvery light flared over her head, and Nella sucked in a breath that was too startled to become a scream. One fine filament of light was followed by another, then another and another. More filaments began linking the first ones, around and around in a slowly-tightening circle: a spider’s web. She couldn’t see a spider, but Nella could see her hands by the pale light cast by the web. They hadn’t disappeared. She wasn’t being swallowed by the dark. She sucked in another breath, her aching chest telling her she’d been panicking. 

Panic never helped. She knew better. 

She focused on her breathing, timing it to those tiny, glowing filaments weaving layer after layer after layer of web. A deep breath in, and a link was formed. Out, and the next appeared. More light with every link. In again, and she could just make out the walls of the wardrobe. The handful of clothes hangers on the bar over her head still fit with plenty of room, which meant it couldn’t really have been shrinking. It was just panic. She knew better.

In. Out. 

She could see the spider now, minuscule and dark, busily weaving her web with her clever legs. 

Perfect. 

Unhurried. 

In. Out. 

Nella’s breathing was perfect, too. Unhurried. She knew how to do this.

In. Out.

She’d be alright. 

The Dursleys would let her out soon, or Hagrid would do it just a little later. Tonight, or perhaps tomorrow. She would wait and breathe and watch the spider. The perfect, miraculous, unhurried spider.

Never done strange things? Hagrid had asked that night they’d met. Made things happen when you was scared or angry?

The spider was magic. 

Her magic. 

She was going to a school for magic because she had magic. Ten months without the Dursleys, and she’d study hard and learn to use her wand, and when she came back to Privet Drive next time, she’d know more magic. She’d be able to take better care of herself. 

She’d be alright. 

In. Out.

Chapter Text

Nella jerked awake as the latch clicked on the wardrobe and her uncle yanked the door open. 

“Out! You lazy, ungrateful little leech! Your aunt is out here packing for you to go to that infernal school, and what are you doing? Having a lie-in?”

Angry tears pricked behind Nella’s eyes, but she battled them back and made her face go blank. She staggered upright on stiff legs and stared at Uncle Vernon’s shoes. “I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon,” she murmured. “I —“ Her mind raced through her options to find the one most likely to appease him, when he was so clearly in the mood for a fight. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Is there anything I can still do to help Aunt Petunia? I c-could take care of breakfast —“

“Ha!” Uncle Vernon’s bark of laughter made Nella flinch. “You think we’ve just been waiting around all morning for Her Royal Highness to grace us with her presence? It’s all done, girl! Your aunt’s been up since the crack of dawn seeing to everything! We’re leaving in five minutes — get cleaned up and get out to the car! I’m not having some great, lumbering freak coming ‘round to fetch you and set the neighbors talking! Get going!”

With a swat to the back of her head to speed her on her way, Nella stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. All her toiletries had already been packed, so she dragged her fingers through her hair and splashed a bit of water on her face, then gulped a few mouthfuls from the tap to serve in place of breakfast.

She hurried back to her room to change her clothes, but she discovered that her dresser was likewise empty. The t-shirt she was wearing had four holes near the hem, and her jeans were ripped through both knees and badly grass-stained. At least they weren't sweaty or outright filthy, since she had been confined to her wardrobe yesterday before she’d had a chance to do any chores. She’d have to make do with yesterday’s underthings as well, though, and she hadn’t any socks at all.

Her mind raced as she tried to figure out how she was going to smuggle her wand out of the house. She couldn’t go to Hogwarts without a wand, but the Dursleys hadn’t left her anything to work with. She didn’t have long sleeves or big enough pockets, or even a sock to tuck it into. 

“Girl!”

Nella jumped at Uncle Vernon’s bellow. “C-coming, Uncle Vernon!” she called back, patting desperately at her clothes for some sort of inspiration.

Her bra! It’d have to be her bra! Nella’s bra had once been a trendy, sporty thing, but Aunt Petunia had bought it and a handful of others secondhand when one of Nella’s teachers had written a note home suggesting it might be time for her to start wearing one. This one had long since gone gray with too many washings, and the elastic was nearly worn out. 

She dove beneath her bed and wrenched up the loose floorboard. The soda crackers were long gone by now, and her water bottle was in desperate need of a refill, but there was her wand, just as she’d left it. She didn't allow herself to think about how ridiculous this plan was. It was her only option. The wand tucked easily up beneath the band across her chest. As long as she wasn’t jumping around or doing somersaults or anything, she didn't think it would fall out, but it was too long. It poked her under both arms, and she was afraid her aunt or uncle would notice the knobbly ends making her t-shirt hang funny.

They were going to see it. They'd murder her. After everything she’d done to prevent it, they were going to find out she’d had the wand the whole time, and they’d snap it into kindling and then likely do the same to her. She was dead. She didn’t have any more clothes to hide it — 

The laundry!

Nella tore downstairs and dashed to the laundry room at the back of the house. There! One of her awful, threadbare sweatshirts — paint-spotted and grass-stained across the front from Dudley tackling her at the park. But it was enormous enough to hide the ends of her wand, so it didn’t matter what it looked like. She’d change into her beautiful new school robes on the train. She yanked the sweatshirt over her head as Uncle Vernon laid on the car horn. 

"S-sorry, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia," Nella gasped as she skidded to a halt in the driveway a minute later. 

Her aunt and uncle were standing in front of the car with horrible false smiles plastered on their faces. One of the neighbors must have looked out at the sound of the horn. "Don't you so much as look at Dudley on this trip, girl. You hear me?" Uncle Vernon growled through his teeth as he steered Nella toward the backseat with a bruising grip on her shoulder.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon," she squeaked, and he yanked her hood up over her head and shoved her into her seat.

***

They reached Kings Cross at half past ten.

“Out, girl.” 

Uncle Vernon loaded her heavy trunk onto a trolley for her, and Nella saw that it had been padlocked shut. She kept her face blank as he raised an eyebrow, daring her to comment. Nella knew better than that. If she had even the faintest chance of getting him to remove that lock for her, she’d have to be absolutely perfect between now and getting on that train.

“Get a move on, then,” he snapped.

Uncle Vernon followed her into the station, pushing the heavy trolley. Nella thought this was strangely kind, until he pushed ahead of her and stopped dead, facing the train platforms with a nasty grin on his face. He shoved the crumpled envelope from Hagrid at her. “Go on then, girl. What does your ticket say?”

Nella unfolded the heavy parchment with shaking hands. She knew what it would say, just as sure as she knew there was no platform nine and three quarters in front of them. A big plastic number nine hung on a pillar over one platform, and a big plastic number ten hung over the one next to it. Nine and three quarters should have been somewhere in the middle, but there was only a bit of brick wall.

“Well, girl?”

“I-I’m to take the Hogwarts E-express from p-platform nine and three quarters at 11:00,” Nella read in a small voice. She wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not when Uncle Vernon so clearly wanted her to. She had to have forgotten something, some clue. That was all. Something special she had to do, like tapping the bricks to open Diagon Alley.

Uncle Vernon nodded with another nasty grin. He slapped her hand onto the handle of her trolley and gave her a shove toward the brick wall. “Have a good term,” he said gleefully.

“Th-thank you, Uncle Vernon,” Nella murmured automatically, though she felt anything but thankful. She would not make matters worse. She wouldn’t. 

She stood very still for nearly a minute, counting her breaths with a tapping finger against the cool metal of the trolley handle. Four taps in. Four taps out. She knew Uncle Vernon was probably waiting for her to panic, to chase after him in tears, to beg him to help her. She had no idea what she was going to do, but it wouldn’t be that. He would delight in refusing, of course, and she wouldn’t be any better off than she was now.

Hagrid had told her that everything she needed was in her letter. She flipped her ticket over, but there was nothing written on the back, or inside the envelope, either. Whatever it was, it was obvious, she supposed. But then, it was obvious she was famous, too, and she’d had no idea about that, either. Hagrid must have forgotten how little she knew, like with quidditch, and the school houses. He’d said to send her owl if she had any trouble, but she’d panicked and sent her owl away with him. This was her fault. She’d made things worse again. 

Nella forced those thoughts away with her next exhale, pushing the tightness in her chest away with them.

Four taps in. Four taps out.

She’d have to ask someone, she decided at last. But Hagrid had said that there was a whole government ministry for keeping muggles from finding out about wizards. Would she get in trouble for asking the wrong person? Although, she reflected, in order for anyone to tell her off or punish her, they’d have to be a witch or wizard themselves. They’d be able to help her find the train. Did she dare break the rules on purpose?

She stopped a passing guard with a squeaked, “Excuse me, sir,” but in the end, when faced with his glaring impatience that was so like Uncle Vernon’s, she didn’t dare mention either Hogwarts or platform nine and three quarters by name. She asked for the eleven o’clock school train, but when he said there was no such train, and then she couldn’t even tell him what part of the country she was going to, he told her off for wasting his time and left.

Her vision was swimming with unshed tears. She had to calm down. According to the large station clock over the arrivals board, she still had just over twenty minutes to find the train. She pushed her luggage trolley around and hurried toward the bathroom. She could afford five minutes to get herself under control. She’d get her wand out, too. She suspected she’d feel better having it at least accessible, even if she didn’t know how to use it. And anyway, if there was something she had to do, like Professor Quirrell tapping that brick, she’d need to have her wand. It wasn’t wasting time, she told herself. Not really.

Once inside the bathroom stall, Nella found she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. This was worse than her worst imaginings of her first day at Stonewall High. Worse than the horrible elephant skin uniform. Worse than having no lunch money. Worse than being hit with Dudley’s Smeltings stick morning and night. Her ribs pinched painfully as she tried to keep silent.

She wasn’t even going to make it to Hogwarts.

Would the Dursleys come back for her? And did she really want them to, after they’d spent the day having Dudley’s conjured tail removed? They’d probably lock her in her wardrobe again — and that was the best case scenario! Her side ached at the memory of that belt buckle whistling through the air and the horrible, wet sound it had made when it landed. Nella swallowed hard. She had to get out of this. She couldn’t be here if the Dursleys came back, and she couldn’t miss the train and risk Hagrid showing up at Privet Drive and making things worse yet. She needed to get on the train or get word to Hagrid about where she was. She had to figure it out.

She pulled her wand out of her bra, blushing as she mentally apologized for putting it there in the first place. But it had worked, hadn’t it? She’d smuggled the wand out of the house safely. She’d been clever enough for that, and it hadn’t even taken any magic to do it. She counted her breaths some more as she tried to force herself to think. She would be clever enough for this, too. She had to be.

Nella couldn’t possibly be the only student going to this school. But if the others were hiding from muggles, too, how was she supposed to recognize them? Sure, she had magic, technically, but for all the good it did her, she was basically a muggle. All her magical school supplies meant nothing in this moment.

Except they did! 

They meant she was going to Hogwarts. Other students would have had the same supply list she’d followed with Hagrid! They’d be pushing luggage trolleys with heavy trunks, too! Some might have owls, or cats, or toads with them. Some older students would probably even have broomsticks, and there was no way a broomstick would fit in a school trunk, surely! And how many muggles would be wandering King’s Cross with a broom in hand?

She scrubbed her hands over her face and cursed herself for spending so long in the bathroom. What if she’d missed the last of the students already? She shoved her wand up her sleeve and raced back out into the station. She wheeled her trolley around so she had a clear view of that span of brick wall between platforms nine and ten. Surely that was the place? She scanned the crowd, but at first, all she saw were noisy tourists, harried-looking commuters, and bored station attendants.

“Come on,” she muttered to herself. She glanced up at the station clock again. Ten minutes. There was still time. Surely somebody was running late. “Come on. Where are you?”

A loud crash made Nella jump.

She whirled around to see that a wheel had come off a luggage trolley behind her, dumping a huge trunk off onto the floor. Potion vials and spell books and a cage with an angrily squawking owl spilled across the floor in every direction. Nella dropped to the floor to gather up a handful of quills that drifted her way as a gaggle of red-haired boys sprang into action to clean up the rest.

She caught a glimpse of a wand disappearing back up the voluminous sleeve of a plump woman with equally red hair, who Nella supposed must be their mother, and she realized both trunk and trolley were fixed. The woman turned suddenly to one of the boys. “Fred, this wasn’t one of your jokes, I hope?”

“I’m not Fred. I’m George,” said the boy indignantly. “Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?”

“Sorry, George, dear.”

“Only joking — I am Fred!”

The twins and a younger boy laughed, but their mother was not amused. “Fred! George! Did you tamper with Percy’s trolley? Because it’s not the least bit funny! We’re going to be late for the train!”

Nella gulped and stepped forward. It would only be worse if they figured it out later, especially if they wasted more of their precious time helping her. “I — er — Th-that may have been me, ma’am. I’m really sorry! I w-was just trying to f-find someone else g-going to school, and I —“

The woman turned to Nella and took in her pale face and shaking hands with a kind smile. “That’s alright, dear. Accidents happen. No harm done. I suppose you’re a bit nervous — first time at Hogwarts?”

Nella nodded, relieved beyond belief, and held out the handful of quills.

"Oh, thank you." The woman peered around behind Nella. “And are you here on your own?” 

Nella nodded again.

The woman frowned and muttered something under her breath. Then she smiled again. “Well, no matter. You can join us, of course. I'm Molly Weasley. All the redheads are mine — Fred, George, and Percy are all old hands at this, but it’s Ron’s first time at Hogwarts as well.” She gestured to the youngest red-haired boy, who waved glumly. “And we’re escorting Hermione and her family on their first time as well.”

A girl with bushy brown hair stepped forward and shook Nella’s hand. “I’m Hermione Granger,” she said in a bossy sort of voice. “I knew you’d be coming today, of course. I’ve read all about you. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, so it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course. I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard, and I picked up some extra books for a bit of background reading, you know. You’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.”

“A-am I?” Nella asked, feeling dazed.

“Didn’t you know?” Hermione asked, looking genuinely surprised. “I’d have found out everything I could if it was me —“

“Now, Hermione,” said her mother mildly. “Remember that not everyone is as fond of reading as you are, love.” She smiled at Nella. “And anyway — I think it’d be rather strange and uncomfortable to read about myself in a book.”

“Sorry,” Hermione said, her cheeks turning the faintest bit pink.

“N-no,” Nella said hastily. “It’s fine.”

Everyone else was staring blankly, baffled by this bizarre exchange. 

“Hang on,” piped a red-haired girl who Nella hadn’t seen, standing behind Mrs. Weasley. “Are you —“

“Now, Ginny —” began her mother, as realization dawned in her own eyes.

“She is,” said one of the twins, beginning to grin.

“Aren’t you?” asked the other.

“She’s got the scar,” said the first.

“Like lightning!” exclaimed the other, grinning too.

“You’re Nella Potter!” said Ginny.

“Er— yeah,” said Nella, feeling self-conscious. “Um—“

“Wicked,” the twins chorused.

“Do you remember what You-Know-Who looks like?” asked the first.

“George!”

“Or how you got off with only that scar?” asked the second.

“Fred! You two stop it this instant! As if Nella needs reminding of that on her first day of school!” Mrs. Weasley took a deep breath and turned another kind smile on Nella. “It really is lovely to meet you, Nella, dear, and I’m sorry about the twins. But we are cutting it awfully fine in getting you lot onto the train. You’ll have all afternoon to get to know one another, but only if we get you all on board.”

“I’ll go first, Mother,” said the oldest boy — Percy — importantly. Nella noticed he had a shiny silver badge pinned to his sweater. “Watch carefully, now,” he said. “Do exactly as I do, and you’ll be just fine.” He strode forward with his repaired trolley and marched purposefully toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Just when Nella was sure he’d crash into the brick, he disappeared.

The twins followed Percy, exaggerating his pompous stride to ridiculous proportions and making their mother sigh. They too disappeared when they reached the brick barrier. Hermione and her parents followed, Mrs. Weasley giving Ron a little push to make him follow right behind. 

Mrs. Weasley turned to Nella again. “You’re next, dear. Try not to feel too nervous. I’m afraid this isn’t that last of the attention you’ll get over these next few days, but they’ll all settle down soon enough. Now, someone ought to have been here to meet you and help you through all this, but you stick with my boys, and they’ll get you through.” She gave Nella a one-armed hug that — bizarrely — nearly made her cry again, then shooed her toward the barrier, with Ginny helping her push the trolley.

Even though she’d seen the boys and Hermione’s whole family disappear into the wall, it did look very solid. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the crash, but it didn’t come. Nella opened her eyes to see a beautiful scarlet steam engine waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, 11:00. Nella looked behind her and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been. She had done it.

Nella spotted Draco Malfoy and his parents further down the platform, near the front of the train. The white-blond hair was difficult to mistake. They were too far away for her to tell for sure, but they seemed to be having a disagreement. Draco and his father both looked angry, while Mrs. Malfoy looked only worried. Mr. Malfoy banged his cane on the ground for emphasis, and Draco’s mouth snapped shut, his cheeks pink. His mother kissed him, and he dutifully returned her embrace before slinking onto the train. He did not look at his father.

Mrs. Weasley came through the archway a moment later and hustled Nella and Ginny along toward the back of the train, where Nella could see a cluster of redheads. Fred and George Weasley came forward and whisked away Nella’s heavy trunk between them. 

“Come on,” said one of them. 

“We’ll put you in with Ron and Hermione,” finished the other. 

As the twins hopped back off the train, Nella settled into a seat by the window where she could watch the Weasleys and the Grangers saying their good-byes. She tried not to feel too sorry for herself over the fact she didn’t have anyone on the platform fussing over her. It was enough that she was here at all. 

“Can’t stay long, Mother,” Percy was saying pompously. He’d already managed to change into his billowing Hogwarts robes, and the silver pin was once again affixed to his chest. “I’m up front. The prefects have got two compartments to themselves —“

“Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?” said one of the twins with an air of great surprise. “You should have said something! We had no idea!”

“Hang on,” said the other twin. “I think I remember him saying something about it… once —“

“— or twice —“

“— a minute —“ 

“— all summer!“

“Oh, shut up,” said Percy the Prefect. “Goodbye, Mother.”

“Have a good term,” said Mrs. Weasley, kissing him on the cheek. “Send me an owl when you get there, won’t you?”

“Of course,” said Percy. He patted Ginny on the shoulder and left.

Mrs. Weasley turned to the twins. “Now, you two — this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you’ve blown up a toilet or —“

“Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet!”

“Great idea though. Thanks, Mum!”

“It’s not funny! And look after Ron!”

“Don’t worry. Ickle Ronniekins is safe with us.” Fred and George each threw an arm around Ron’s shoulders, but he ducked away crossly.

“Get off!” 

“And Ron, dear,” said Mrs. Weasley, turning at last to the youngest boy as the twins ruffled Ginny’s hair and bounced back onto the train. “I know you were hoping for someone a bit more like Lee —“

The twins threw themselves into seats beside Nella with identical grins. “Don’t worry about Ickle Ronniekins,” said one of them. Fred, she thought. “He’s not always so gloomy.”

“He’ll cheer up,” George agreed. “He’s just out of temper because Dumbledore’s asked him to help a girl settle in this term.”

“Afraid kids’ll think they’re an item.”

“But anyone who looks at them can tell she’s not his type.”

“We took her and her family shopping in Diagon Alley —“

“— nightmare —“

“— something of a know-it-all —“

“— bit bossy, too —“

“— grates on the nerves, that one —“

“— Mum says that’s all it is —“

“—nerves. Says she’ll settle in soon enough, but we’ll have to see...”

A whistle sounded, and Mrs. Weasley kissed Ron goodbye and pushed him toward the train door. “Hurry up!”

A short distance away, Hermione’s parents gave her one more fierce hug and then shooed her toward the train as well. Ginny began to cry as Ron slouched into the compartment with Hermione in tow.

“Don’t cry, Ginny,” called Fred, standing up on the edge of Nella’s seat so he could lean out the window. “We’ll send you loads of owls!”

George yanked his brother down by the back of the shirt and took his place at the window. “We’ll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat!”

“George!”

“Only joking, Mum!”

“Behave yourselves! And look after Hermione! And Nella!”

The train began to move. Nella waved her thanks to Mrs. Weasley and watched as Ginny ran after the train, half laughing, half crying, until it picked up too much speed and rounded a curve.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

It was all that stupid Nella Potter’s fault, Draco thought furiously as he stepped off the train and watched her push through the reluctant crowd of first years to greet Hagrid. Of course she’d be the first one brave enough to approach the giant of a man, dragging her stupid friends with her across the empty ring of space that had formed around him. 

Gryffindor through and through, just like his father had said.

"Alrigh' there, Draco? Good ter see yeh!" 

Draco flinched in surprise at being remembered, then offered a cool smile and nod of greeting. “You, too, Hagrid.”

At least the other first years looked impressed that he was on first name terms with a giant, never mind it was a glorified servant calling out to him over the heads of the crowd. Crabbe and Goyle grinned smugly at him too as Hagrid led the way off the platform. Silver lining to that stupid meeting in Diagon Alley, he supposed.

Draco's mood soured further as he followed Hagrid’s bobbing lantern through the trees just behind Potter’s little group — the blood traitor, the squib, and the mudblood. Of course the Girl Who Lived had to fall in with that pathetic lot. Draco was furious with himself — if he’d spent less time arguing with his father on the platform, maybe he’d have had a shot at catching her first, and folding her in with his own social group. Then he'd be the one calling the shots. No chance of that now, with how awful Pansy had been to them all back on the train. That famed Gryffindor chivalry would have her defending the lot of them with her life.

Pansy was sidling up to him again, but Draco deliberately drifted toward the side of the path so she’d have to drop back a step and follow him instead. He would've welcomed the fawning attention most days, but she had been absolutely insufferable on the train after meeting Potter. She couldn’t talk about anything else. Potter's clothes, Potter's friends, Potter's hair, Potter's scar…

 Potter, Potter, stupid Nella Potter.

He should have left her to fend for herself with Madam Malkin and that oaf Hagrid that day in Diagon Alley. But Draco had been bored, and she’d seemed interesting, even before he'd known who she was. And what business did the Golden Girl have looking that pathetic, anyway? Famous Nella Potter had been a timid, stuttering mess in those awful clothes and broken glasses. Had it been some stunt to stop herself being recognized while she was out with that oaf? And Draco didn’t believe her story about shutting her hand in a door, either. He would have bet anything the giant had hurt it, too stupid to know his own strength, but no — she’d been relieved to see Hagrid. She’d probably done something stupid herself then, he decided. Something unbecoming of the Girl Who Lived.

Stupid Nella Potter.

At the lakeside, Potter went pale and pathetic again at the sight of the little boats that were to take them across to the castle. Draco wondered idly whether muggles were smart enough to teach their children to swim. 

“C-can I ride with you again, Hagrid?” she called hopefully.

"Better not," Hagrid said, splitting the students into groups of four. "I'm best on me own in these little dinghies. Wouldn' want ter tip yeh in."

Potter fell back into the crowd, looking disappointed but determined. Draco ground his teeth at the urge to help that suddenly rose up once more. Perhaps that was Potter's trick: she liked playing the damsel in distress. The noble martyr. She'd certainly gotten his father's attention.

Pansy had noticed Potter's issue, too, but she clearly felt no inclination to be helpful. “I wonder if the giant squid is nocturnal,” she mused loudly to Millicent, smirking as Potter went even paler.

Draco ignored Pansy and angled to get split into a boat with Potter and Granger. His father would kill him if he found out he'd passed up such a perfect opportunity to get closer to the Golden Girl. And word that stupid Nella Potter was scared of the Black Lake was sure to get out. Stupid twit didn't know how many people would be looking for weaknesses, especially these first few days. Weasley, Longbottom, and even the Granger girl had gotten themselves in with her already, playing off her bleeding heart, no doubt. They wouldn't be the last.

Pansy followed him, of course, but Draco steered her into a seat at the front of the boat next to Granger. Potter’s hand, when he took it to help her into the rocking boat, was shaking. Stupid, transparent nitwit. He gripped it tightly and didn’t let go as he dropped onto the seat next to her.

Potter glanced up at him through her messy hair — and Pansy was right, she did look rather like a venomous tentacula with it twisting and tangling all over the place like that — but Draco gazed resolutely ahead. He felt her tense next to him as the boat slid forward onto the lake, and he ground his teeth but squeezed her hand. It had felt good, getting her hand healed for her that day in Diagon Alley, and it felt good when she squeezed his hand back gratefully there in the boat. 

He hated it.

Stupid Nella Potter was going to ruin his life.

He should have known Pansy would try something sooner or later. She was too used to getting her way. He saw the dirty looks she cast over her shoulder at Potter as they crossed the lake, but he was too busy trying not to think about what was coming to pay her much more attention than that. He was trying not to picture the dungeon common room with its blue-green windows looking out into the lake. He wondered briefly where the Gryffindor common room was as he gazed up at the looming castle. Somewhere high up, he was sure, where they could lord over the whole school. Mighty, noble lions.

Potter squeezed his hand again, and he realized he was gripping hers very tightly. He relaxed and aimed for boredom again in his expression as they ducked under an ivy curtain and eased into an underground harbor. After the little boat bumped into the dock, Draco helped Potter out, then followed himself. 

"Ooh, Draco," Pansy whined with a stupid giggle and a flutter of her fingers. "It's too far!"

Draco ground his teeth and reached down to help Pansy out, too.

Halfway out of the boat, Pansy let out a sudden screech. She released Draco’s hand, grabbed a fistful of Potter’s robes, and dropped back heavily onto her seat, as though she'd been hit with a jelly-legs jinx. Granger shrieked and gripped the sides of the little boat as it pitched violently, but Potter overbalanced completely and toppled into the water with a terrified scream.

“Nella!” Granger shrieked, peering over the side of the boat into the dark water. 

When she didn’t come bobbing right back up, Draco dropped off the side of the dock after her. He groped through the frigid water and found a fistful of Potter’s collar. He kicked upward, dragging her head clear of the surface. She came up coughing and thrashing in a panic.

 The stupid muggles had not, in fact, taught her to swim.

“G-grab the dock,” Draco snarled through chattering teeth, struggling to keep her from dropping beneath the surface again as their long robes dragged at them.

“C’mere you two!” Hagrid was there then, hauling both of them up by the scruffs of their necks and setting them on the dock. He looked them both over. "Well done, Draco," he said gruffly, giving Draco a nod of approval and a clap on the shoulder that made his knees buckle. "Righ' brave of yeh! I'll be sure ter let yer new Head o' House know, soon as yeh've been Sorted. Y'alrigh' Nella?"

Nella only nodded, still coughing wetly. Granger scrambled out of the boat, setting it rocking once more and making Pansy squeal again. She joined Weasley and Longbottom in fussing over Potter, while Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott converged on Draco.

“Nice one,” Nott said, sounding impressed. “Never thought I’d see you playing the hero, Malfoy.” Crabbe grunted in agreement. Goyle clapped him on the shoulder. 

“S-somebody h-had to,” Draco said, shivering violently. “Sh-she's bound t-to be D-dumbledore's f-favorite."

Nott laughed. “Can you imagine the headline in the Daily Prophet? ‘Girl Who Lived Dies Ten Feet From Shore.’”

“Maybe you'll have earned us fifty points right off!" said Crabbe.

Draco’s reply was mercifully interrupted by a blast of warm air rushing over his back. He spun to see Granger standing there, wand outstretched.

“If you’ll turn properly, I can do your front,” she said in clear irritation, though what she was so annoyed with him for, he had no idea. It wasn't as though he'd been the one to dump Potter in the lake. “No sense staying cold and wet.” Draco turned fully, and she waved her wand with a furious slashing motion that had him reaching for his own on instinct. “Calesco!” 

Another blast of warm air washed over him, banishing the chill and leaving his robes warm and dry once more. “Thanks,” he said in surprise.

Granger just pursed her lips, nodded once, and marched off with her nose in the air. Draco watched her rejoin Potter’s little group with new interest. Muggleborn or not, Granger might at least be useful. Maybe Potter wasn’t as clueless as she appeared, though she still looked absurdly pathetic in the middle of her little gaggle of friends. Merlin help them all if she started to cry. Pansy would never give her a moment’s peace.

Severus nodded at him in greeting as he trooped into the Great Hall with the rest of the first years. Draco nodded back once, then returned his focus to looking bored and unimpressed by the opulent surroundings. The Malfoy family had a reputation to uphold, and he was well aware of all the eyes on him and the rest of the first years. It wouldn’t do to appear in anything less than absolute control of himself.

They crossed in front of the staff table, and McGonagall lined them up facing the rest of the students. Stupid Potter was firmly ensconced between her new friends a few places down from him. She looked cool and determined now, he noted, especially standing between the anxious-looking Granger and the absolute trainwreck that was Longbottom. Even Weasley, who should know exactly what to expect after sending about a million brothers to school, looked a little green. Potter, though, merely watched McGonagall set the battered Sorting Hat in front of them with a sort of cool interest that reminded him of someone.  

The hat twitched, a rip near the brim opening wide to form a mouth, and it began to sing: 

Oh, you may not think I'm pretty, 
But don't judge on what you see, 
I'll eat myself if you can find 
A smarter hat than me. 

You can keep your bowlers black, 
Your top hats sleek and tall, 
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat 
And I can cap them all. 

There's nothing hidden in your head 
The Sorting Hat can't see, 
So try me on and I will tell you 
Where you ought to be. 

You might belong in Gryffindor, 
Where dwell the brave at heart, 
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry 
Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff, 
Where they are just and loyal, 
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true 
And unafraid of toil; 

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, 
if you've a ready mind, 
Where those of wit and learning, 
Will always find their kind; 

Or perhaps in Slytherin 
You'll make your real friends, 
Those cunning folk use any means
 To achieve their ends. 

So put me on! 
Don't be afraid! 
And don't get in a flap! 
You're in safe hands (though I have none) 
For I'm a Thinking Cap!" 

The whole hall burst into applause, and Draco joined in, feeling ill. 

 “So we’ve just got to try on the hat,” Weasley whispered furiously to Potter. “I’ll kill Fred! He was going on about wrestling a troll!”

Draco rolled his eyes, and the spike of annoyance helped settle his nerves for a few moments. He glanced down the line at Potter again and saw a brief expression of relief cross her face before that cool, determined mask settled back into place again, and he realized who that look reminded him of — his mother. 

Stupid Nella Potter was learning fast.

As the Sorting started, Draco shifted his focus to the starry ceiling and tried to keep his heart rate under control. He heard one new Gryffindor, two Hufflepuffs, and two Ravenclaws go before Millicent became the first new Slytherin. Pansy, beside him, squealed and cheered as if there had been any doubt. Crabbe shot him a grin as he lurched off toward the Slytherin table a minute later. More Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, a couple of Gryffindors he didn't recognize, and then Goyle joined Slytherin as well. Crabbe gave a cheer as he joined their table.

Then Granger went to join Gryffindor, of course. Their little group probably had it all planned out: Potter and Weasley had family ties, and the others would follow. Daphne went to Slytherin, prompting another squeal from Pansy — Merlin, but she was insufferable! 

A few more students Draco neither knew nor cared about, and then he became aware of a tense silence filling the hall. His heart jolted with the momentary fear that he'd missed his own name, but then he realized it was Longbottom's turn. The Sorting Hat was sitting still and silent upon his head. The moment stretched absurdly. Draco caught McGonagall glancing at Dumbledore, and he was sure she'd have to pull it off the poor squib's head and send him home again.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Longbottom was so relieved he ran off still wearing the hat and had to scurry back sheepishly to return it while the Great Hall rang with laughter. Potter grinned at him, though, and not in a mocking way, and he seemed to feel better. Draco wondered what that sort of friend would be like. His set never revealed weakness, let alone comforted each other about it. If it had been him instead of Longbottom, Pansy probably would have dropped him entirely.

A couple more students went — MacDougall, Macmillan — and then it was Draco's turn. The walk up to the stool seemed to take an eternity, and he could feel every eye in the hall on him. Potter smiled as he passed her, and he hated that he didn't hate it. Severus gave him another nod. Suddenly, he was there. He sat on the stool, and McGonagall put the Sorting Hat on his head. It was time. 

"Right," said a tiny voice in his ear. "Malfoy -- an easy one! I know just --"

"No!" Draco thought in a panic. The Sorting Hat wasn't even going to give him a chance. And somehow that — the fact that the Sorting Hat didn't even feel the need to look past his last name — decided him. No one cared who Draco was. Not the Hat, not his father, not even his best friends, who he knew without a doubt would drop him as soon as he did this.

"Gryffindor?" asked the hat. "Are you sure? Generations of Malfoys --"

Draco wasn't listening. He was staring at the Slytherin table, full of the friends his father had chosen for him, the sons and daughters of friends his father had likely been assigned by his own father. He'd worked his whole life to grow into the place his father had sworn was waiting for him here, and now he wanted him to throw it all aside for a rumor about Albania? For a Dark Lord who'd been weak enough to be defeated by an infant? Who hid in a forest a continent away from stupid, stuttering Nella Potter with her broken glasses and pathetic friends?

 His father wanted him to break seven centuries of tradition to follow stupid Nella Potter into Gryffindor so he could claim foresight if the Dark Lord returned, all without getting his own hands dirty? Fine. Draco was brave enough for that. Stick him in Gryffindor. But what if he didn’t return? What if they were throwing away everything Draco had ever planned on, and it was for nothing? His father didn’t care. Draco was disposable.

Suddenly, the image of Potter smiling at stupid, useless Longbottom rose, unbidden before his eyes. Then smiling at him as he passed. Hagrid, addressing him not by his last name, but his first. Talking about his new head of house, whoever it was to be, as if it weren’t a foregone conclusion. He hadn’t hated it. He’d go to Gryffindor, but he was a Slytherin at heart. He’d make himself a place of his own, and his coward of a father would rue the day he'd decided to use Draco as a pawn in his stupid games. 

"Ah," said the hat. "Yes, I see. Plenty of courage. Cunning, too, oh, yes! But very daring."

The Hat sounded almost surprised, and Draco knew that everyone else would be surprised, too. It wouldn't have occurred to any of them that Draco Malfoy might have a mind of his own. His cheeks heated as he realized it might not have occurred to him, either, if it hadn't been for that meeting in Diagon Alley. He would've simply slid into the place that he'd been tailor-made to fit, and the thought was infuriating.

"I'm going to Gryffindor," Draco said loudly and firmly, daring the Hat to argue. 

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat agreed in a bellow to the rest of the school.

McGonagall lifted the hat from his head, looking bewildered as polite applause rippled through the hall.  Severus, too, was staring at him concernedly from the staff table. Draco ignored them, along with his own burning cheeks as he strode purposefully off to the Gryffindor table. Severus was sure to write to Draco's father the moment the feast was done, which would at least save Draco the chore.

He slid into the empty seat beside Granger. She looked annoyed, but he didn't particularly care. He was more concerned with ignoring the incredulous stares and hissing whispers of the Slytherin table behind him. He focused on the ceiling again as the Sorting continued. There was only one name he cared about, and only a minute or two later, the whole Gryffindor table erupted with cheers as Potter was declared one of them.

Potter scurried over to the Gryffindor table looking relieved and embarrassed by all the cheering. Two of Weasley's brothers got up a chant as she slid into the seat beside Draco at the end of the table. 

"We got Potter! We got Potter!"

Draco ignored her and the cold hand that tried to slip into his beneath the table. He settled his elbows on top of the table instead and folded his hands under his chin. He wasn't pathetic. He didn't need rescuing. Not like stupid Nella Potter.

Chapter Text

Nella’s first day of classes was already off to a miserable start.

She had spent half the night digging through the wreck the Dursleys had made of her trunk, desperate to salvage anything useful, or at least find a way to downplay some of the damage. The results were disheartening: two textbooks with swollen, bloated covers and pages that slipped loose at the spine; a schoolbag peppered with holes and bizarrely iridescent stains; and one miraculously unbroken vial of ink — though of course, it was the color-changing one Hagrid had talked her into buying in Diagon Alley. 

“It’s not fer schoolwork, mind. Yer professors’ll want plain black.”

Still, any ink had to be better than no ink. And maybe, she reasoned, the color-changing ink would give the professors something to focus on that would keep them from thinking too hard about the other supplies she was lacking.

Worst of all, though, were her own hands, blistered and peeling and so, so sore. At first she had thought the sharp sting was only a reaction to the nettles she knew were in her potions kit. Nettles, she could handle, having pulled far more than her fair share out of Aunt Petunia’s flower beds, but as she’d worked, the marks had spread and throbbed. Though she’d scrubbed and scrubbed, she’d been far too late in realizing the danger.

Now, Nella sipped tea at breakfast with the sleeves of Ron’s borrowed robe tucked over her hands, using the pretense of the hot cup as an excuse to keep them covered. Her bottle of precious ink was tucked into her school bag, which she had weighted with the two textbooks for the sake of appearances, though they were both useless for anything else. She still had no idea what she was going to do about her ruined supplies.

The Great Hall around her buzzed with morning clamor. Owls swooped in and out of the crisp, blue sky that took the place of the ceiling. Hermione had said it was only an illusion, but Nella wasn’t so sure. Students laughed and called out to friends along the four house tables. Benches scraped against the stone floor. Forks clanged against plates. And somewhere further down the Gryffindor table, a fourth year had spilled orange juice on their neighbor.

Fred Weasley had to lean across the table to be heard over their shouting. “What have you lot got first this morning?” he asked around a mouthful of bacon.

Ron peered at his schedule, flattening it beside the ketchup bottle. “Looks like… Double Potions.”

“Ugh,” said George, slathering jam across his toast in one broad swipe. “That’s rotten luck for your first day, and no mistake! Who’ve you got it with?”

“Slytherin,” Hermione supplied briskly as she poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice. She flinched as an owl skimmed low overhead, but she, at least, managed to keep from spilling. “Isn’t Professor Snape head of Slytherin House?” 

“Yeah,” said Fred darkly, pitching his voice low now, as though the Slytherins across the hall might overhear. He leaned closer, sliding a platter of eggs out of the way. “Word to the wise, you lot — Snape favors his own students in pretty much every situation. The Slytherins know it, too, so watch yourselves.”

“He can get nasty,” George added, taking an enormous bite of his toast and spraying the table with crumbs as he spoke. “Still — at least you’re getting the double session out of the way for the week. Could be worse.”

Nella nursed her tea as the Weasley boys fell to bickering over third helpings of toast and sausages, and Neville surreptitiously sprinkled more sugar on his porridge. Much as it pained her, she let the platter of scrambled eggs pass her by, shaking her head at Hermione’s offer with a muttered excuse about her stomach. It wasn’t a total lie — she had eaten far more than she usually did the night before — but feigning a lack of appetite was easier than trying to explain about her hands. 

She knew she was being ridiculous. There was obviously no way she could hope to hide her hands from everyone until they healed, but she simply couldn’t deal with the issue at the moment. Not when everything was still so new and overwhelming. She didn’t know what she was going to do about her trunk or her hands, but she trusted that a clever answer would come to her by the time the problem became unavoidable.

In the midst of all the chaos in the Great Hall, a patch of stillness at the corner of her vision made her glance up. A cluster of Hufflepuff first years had slowed in the aisle, whispering and pointing at her table. Nella’s stomach tightened. “Why are they—?” she began, but stopped. She already knew.

“They’ll get over it,” Ron reminded her quietly.

“Just ignore them,” Hermione echoed at her other side. 

Before she could answer, Percy Weasley swooped down on the gawkers like an eagle, flapping his arms to shoo them along. “Get a move on, all of you — no dawdling in the aisles! Finish your breakfast, or you’ll be late for class!” The Hufflepuffs scattered, whispering all the while, and Percy turned back toward the Gryffindor table, smoothing his prefect badge with one hand as though he’d just performed a public service.

Ron rolled his eyes, then frowned suddenly. “What do you reckon he’s doing over there?”

Everyone looked toward the doors to the Entrance Hall, where Ron was pointing. Draco Malfoy was standing there amidst a knot of Slytherins. They weren’t exactly blocking his way, but the way they leaned in close made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“Awful chummy with them, isn’t he?” George muttered.

“Maybe he’s their ambassador,” Fred offered. He put a hand over his heart and adopted a pompous air as though he was a king addressing his subjects. “Building ties between houses, one noble Malfoy at a time.”

George gave a solemn nod. “Very diplomatic of him. Next thing you know, Dumbledore’ll be declaring joint quidditch teams.”

Ron made a face. “More like he’s their spy. All his mates are in Slytherin. What was he playing at, telling the Sorting Hat he wanted Gryffindor like that?”

“Maybe he really meant it,” Hermione said, her tone full of forced brightness. “It has to be better here than there, hasn’t it? I mean, just look at that lot.”

“Yeah,” Neville agreed nervously. He gulped as two older Slytherins, these ones built like gorillas, left their table to join the knot around Malfoy. “Has to be better.”

Nella didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to make of Malfoy either, but then, she didn’t feel like she knew much about anything at all at the moment. She watched as Draco finally managed to disengage himself from the Slytherins. He caught Nella’s eye and strode down the hall to wedge himself sideways into the slight gap between Nella and Hermione. He grabbed a slice of toast as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Good morning, Draco,” Hermione said pointedly, sliding down with an exaggerated sigh to make space for him.

Malfoy smirked at her tone. He bit off a huge corner of toast and spoke around the mouthful. “Morning.” 

Neville’s voice squeaked as he asked, “Th-they weren’t g-giving you a hard time, w-were they?” He turned pink immediately at his own daring.

Malfoy laughed, sharp and unpleasant, and took another bite of toast. “And what are you going to do if they were, Longbottom?”

“He was just asking,” Nella snapped, louder than she meant to. Malfoy’s gaze cut to her, cool and assessing, and her stomach gave a nervous lurch. She didn’t know whether she was making things better or worse — probably worse. The smart thing would have been to let it drop, but bullying kind, timid Neville was well over the line, as far as she was concerned.

George apparently agreed. He leaned in on Neville’s left, getting right in Malfoy’s face across the table. “You may not know this yet, Malfoy, being new and all —“

“—but we look out for one another in Gryffindor,” Fred finished, leaning in beside his twin. 

Malfoy’s expression twisted into something unreadable.

“And that includes you,” Hermione said briskly, setting down her silverware and standing up. She looked down her nose at Malfoy. “Whether we like it or not. We’ve got Double Potions with the Slytherins first thing this morning, and apparently Professor Snape always favors them. So if they are giving you a hard time —“

Malfoy cut her off with another mirthless laugh. “Figures,” he muttered. Then he stood, too, cramming the rest of his toast into his mouth. “Don’t waste your breath, Granger. I don’t need a warning about Snape. I’ll be just fine in Potions.”

Nella opened her mouth, but he smirked down at her. “I promise, Potter. You’d do better to worry about yourself.”

The warning bell rang, and breakfast dissolved into a rush of students leaving the Great Hall before Nella could ask him what he meant.

***

As if being told to go to the dungeons for their very first class wasn’t bad enough, the whole rest of the school seemed to be conspiring to keep them from getting there. People stopped in corridors to stare, or stood on tiptoe outside their classrooms, or doubled back or darted down secret passageways to come around again and get a second or even third look at Nella. Whispers trailed after her, punctuated by pointing fingers and the occasional hiss of, “That’s her, look!” or “It’s really there! Like lightning!”

On Privet Drive, invisibility had been her best armor. It allowed her to move, to breathe, to plan. But here… Here she could see no clear way through. If they would just stop staring for a minute, she could figure out how to deal with all of it. Instead, the stares seemed to intensify with every hard-earned step. Whispers darted around her like sparks, and Nella’s skin began to prickle. Her chest tightened. There wasn’t enough air in the narrow corridor. 

Then, she felt space open up to her right. She sucked in a relieved breath, only to realize Neville had fallen back. Just a step, then another, shrinking back — away from her. Then Hermione was gone, too, not even glancing Nella’s way as she followed Neville toward the wall. 

Nella felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. The corridor wavered before her. All around her, faces stared, voices hissed, and for a heartbeat, she stood alone in the middle of it, completely adrift. Ron was just ahead of her, his red hair brilliant in a shaft of sunlight from one of the high windows, but she didn’t dare call out for reassurance. He’d only abandon her, too. 

She was so stupid. She’d been a freak back on Privet Drive, too. Dudley’s freaky cousin with her freaky scar. She couldn’t catch her breath. She’d dared hope, without Dudley to spread the rumors and bully anyone who didn’t already mind… 

But of course she was a freak here, too. 

And then, all at once, Neville was back at her side, pressed close against her shoulder again. Nella blinked, startled, and saw Hermione on his other side, her hand firmly clasping his. Hermione’s chin was up, eyes searching for a way through, and understanding rushed in. Neville hadn’t been rejecting Nella — he’d been panicking, too.

With relief came clarity. Panic never helped. She knew better. She had to do better. 

She hooked her arm through Neville’s, and she gave Hermione a small, firm nod. 

Her free hand curled carefully against her bag strap, and she began to tap. She forced herself to take a breath. Four taps in, four taps out. Her fingers stung with the motion, but she let that ground her. A little pain could be handled. She knew how to do this. She just had to be clever. There was always a way. She only had to find it.

“Bunch of blinking mooncalves,” Ron muttered, standing on tiptoe to try and find them a way past a knot of Ravenclaws choking the stairwell.

Behind her, Draco huffed again in obvious frustration — the third time he had done so. This time he was close enough that she could feel the heat of it on her neck. Her spine stiffened. As if they weren’t already doing their best. As if he could do any better.

And just like that, the solution clicked into place. She glanced back, and sure enough, the corridor behind their group was much emptier. Everyone wanted to see her scar, after all, and they couldn’t very well see it from behind her, could they? 

“Maybe we should go back?” she asked Ron, purposely excluding Draco as she glanced at the others. “Try another way to the dungeons?”

They’d take a detour around the gawkers, who would surely need to head to their own classes soon, or else Draco’s clearly rising temper would take care of the problem for them. Either way, they’d be out of this awful corridor. That would have to be an improvement.

Ron’s head whipped back and forth, clearly calculating their odds. “Yeah, alright,” he said after a moment. “Maybe Percy’s —“

But that was too much for Draco. Like a storm breaking, he strode forward, clipping Ron’s shoulder hard as he passed, and Nella winced in silent apology.

“You’ll want to move,” Draco snarled, not even slowing as he approached the nearest Ravenclaw. She blanched at the look on his face and scurried aside. Faced with the stark choice of moving or being moved, the rest of the crowd parted as well.

“You lot coming?” he barked over his shoulder.

***

After all the commotion in the corridors, the Potions classroom was pleasantly cool and dim, lit by flickering lamps that glimmered against the glass bottles and vials that lined the shelves spaced in shallow alcoves around the room. Draco stalked straight down the center aisle to one of the tables right at the back of the room, but Nella and the others chose a table closer to the middle, where they would share two cauldrons between them and be nearer to the door at the end of the double period. Hopefully they’d be able to get out and on their way to their next class before the corridors filled up too much.

The Slytherins filtered slowly into the room after the Gryffindors, and Ron rolled his eyes as Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy dropped themselves into the empty seats at Draco’s table. “It’s like he’s not even in Gryffindor,” Ron hissed. “Why couldn’t the git have picked stinking Slyth—“

The door banged open, and Professor Snape swept into the dungeon. He carried a slim roll of parchment, which he unrolled with a flick of his wrist as he strode to the front of the room. His voice was quiet, but it carried easily across the instantly silent chamber.

“Lavender Brown.”

“H-here,” Lavender squeaked.

“Millicent Bulstrode.”

“Here.”

“Vincent Crabbe… Tracey Davis…Seamus Finnegan…” The list went on, Snape’s tone clipped and expressionless. At each answer, he made a mark with his quill, scarcely even glancing at each student.

Then he paused. 

“Ah, yes…” He spoke slowly, disdain positively dripping from every syllable. “Nella Potter, our new celebrity.”

Nella’s stomach twisted at the reminder, and she blushed fiercely.

“Well?”

Ron nudged her knee with his own. “H-here.”

A ripple of snickers broke out among the Slytherins, but Snape made no move to silence them. He only finished calling the remaining names and set the parchment aside. He stared around the room with eyes every bit as black as Hagrid’s, though they lacked Hagrid’s warmth. Nella shivered as they landed briefly on her, and she thought back to Draco’s comment about worrying about herself in Snape’s class.

“You imagine you are here to stir colorful concoctions, to watch things bubble and smoke, and perhaps impress your friends with a puff of steam or a shower of sparks.” He paused, eyes glittering. “You are not. You are here because an untrained potioneer is more dangerous than a cornered chimaera — and far less predictable.”

The room was silent but for the scratch of Hermione’s quill. Snape let the words hang in the air for a moment, then he began to pace.

“Rule number one: keep your work area clean. I expect benches free of clutter and all ingredients in their proper places. Spilled sopophorous bean extract, for one, ignites faster than dragonfire. If I find so much as a drop of any ingredient left unattended, I will consider it sabotage.”

No different than Aunt Petunia’s kitchen, then. Nella could keep her space clean. She breathed a little easier. 

Snape turned sharply at the end of the aisle, his inky black robes swirling about his ankles. 

“Second: read your labels. Carefully! Belladonna and knotgrass may look similar when dried, but one will stop your heart in a matter of minutes, while the other will merely leave you with ghoulishly foul breath. Confuse the two, and death by Belladonna will be the least of your worries.”

Several students bent lower over their parchment, quills racing to keep up with Snape’s dire pronouncements. Nella, who had neither quill nor parchment, kept her sore hands tight in her lap, listening hard, determined to remember everything. She thought she could likely recognize knotgrass — Uncle Vernon hadn’t tolerated a single sprig of it in his quest for the Best Suburban Lawn award — but she had no idea what belladonna looked like. No one else looked confused, though. 

“Third: inspect before you touch. If you find residue on a container, you will not put your hand to it until you can confidently identify it. Sufficiently concentrated shrivelfig sap, for instance, can dissolve your fingers to the bone.”

A few people shifted uneasily at that mental image. Nella pulled her sleeves more securely over her hands as Snape swept past her table. She wondered if that’s what the sticky, purple substance on the rim of her cauldron had been. 

“Fourth: never crowd your workspace. Overcrowding means breakage, and breakage means exposure. A cut from a broken vial of doxy venom could kill you before you have time to raise a hand for assistance.”

“Fifth: you will follow your recipes line by line, word for word. You will not skip. You will not guess. You will not improvise. Get impatient and add porcupine quills to a potion before it cools, for example, and the explosion may not kill you — but it will maim everyone at your table.”

“And finally: there will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. The brewing of a potion is magic in and of itself. The addition of more magic, therefore, can cause unforeseen consequences. Stir a simple potion to cure boils with the same spell your mother would use to stir gravy for dinner, and if the potion does not ignite during the process, it will almost certainly cause third degree burns the first time it is applied to a despairing teenager’s face.”

Nella was momentarily distracted by the novel idea of using magic for cooking. Ron had told her about his mother’s magical cakes, but she hadn’t really thought about it beyond the idea of decorating. If she could cook with magic, too… The Dursleys would never tolerate it if they knew, of course, but if she could just learn a few little tricks to help her with timing their meals properly… 

“Potter!”

His sharp bark made Nella jump. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Nella froze. She must have missed whatever he’d just said. She looked at Ron. Thankfully, he appeared just as bewildered as she was, but Hermione’s hand had shot into the air.

“I asked you, not Mr. Weasley,” Snape sneered. “Cheating and shortcuts will not be tolerated in my class, Potter. I’ve no patience for lazy students. Let’s try again. Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

Hermione’s hand quivered higher, but Nella could only shake her head. “P-probably in my textbook? I-I don’t know what that is, yet, sir.”

Snape’s lip curled. “And yet you thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, Potter? I suppose you thought one of the little people would be more than happy to do the work for you? Weasley, perhaps? Fame will only get you so far in life girl — and exactly nowhere in this class.”

Frustrated tears prickled behind Nella’s eyes. She would have lived in those beautiful books if they’d let her. But she knew better than to let her feelings show. She kept her face politely empty and just waited for the professor to lose interest.

But Snape clearly had no intention of letting up. He was completely ignoring Hermione's quivering hand and staring at Nella with a sort of cold intensity that made her feel about three inches tall. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"  

While Nella’s mind scrambled to come up with some answer that might appease him, Hermione half rose from her seat beside her, her hand straining toward the ceiling. At the back of the room, Draco gave a strange, sharp laugh. “She clearly doesn’t know, Professor, but I think Granger just might.”

The dungeon erupted in Slytherin laughter, and Nella felt a pang of betrayal. She supposed it was payback for snapping at him in the Great Hall at breakfast, but still, it stung. 

“Sit down,” Snape said to Hermione with silken malice. He turned his attention back to Nella once more. “I expect my students to answer for themselves when I ask them questions, Potter. Five points from Gryffindor.”

“Yes, sir,” Nella said, forcing her voice to remain steady.

“And I suggest you lower yourself to the menial task of taking notes, Potter, as you will clearly have a great deal of studying to do before our next class. Your arrogance will get you or your classmates killed.”

“Yes, sir.” She busied herself beneath the table, fishing out her ink bottle and rifling through her stained and crumbling textbooks to find a loose page she could write on. She sat up to find a spare quill lying in front of her. Hermione offered her a quick, tight smile, and Nella nodded. 

As Snape shifted his lecture to the matter of brewing a basic potion to cure boils, Nella bent to write, careful to keep as much of her hand as possible covered by the fabric of her sleeve. As he spoke, Snape paced around the room like an overgrown vulture circling its prey.

“Color-changing ink, Potter?” Snape drawled suddenly from behind her, making her jump and blot her page badly. “Too grand for plain black, are we? How like a Potter…” He snatched up her parchment and scanned the meager notes she had managed to scratch out with the unfamiliar quill and sore fingers. “And that penmanship! I suppose you save your best handwriting for signing autographs.” The Slytherins laughed again. “Tell me, Potter: are you being deliberately slow?”

“Of course not!” Nella snapped, her frustration getting the better of her. She ducked her head at once, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Snape’s face contort with rage. Her heart hammered behind her ribs.

“Defiant, too.” His voice was a dangerous hiss. “Five more points. You will receive no special treatment in my classroom, Potter. I have no patience for lazy, entitled little girls who put my students in danger. Do you understand me?”

Nella made her face go blank again. Empty. She just had to get through. “Yes, sir.”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly unsatisfied with her tone, and Nella forced a slight tremor back into her voice, hoping to appease him by making him feel powerful. Aunt Petunia liked that. “I-I’m sorry, sir.”

Snape didn’t like it. He stared at her for a moment, then crumpled the parchment with a huff of disgust. “Begin again. In black.”

Ron slid his ink bottle close as soon as the professor’s back was turned. “I’ll share my notes later—“

“And another five points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley,” Snape snapped. “It is my turn to speak, not yours.”

The rest of the period crawled by. While Snape didn’t single Nella out again, his dark gaze settled on her often enough to make her stomach twist with anxiety.

At last the bell rang.

“Potter. Stay behind.”

Chapter Text

“Out, Mr. Weasley,” Snape drawled. “This isn’t the place for Gryffindor gallantry. You may tell your next teacher that Potter will be along shortly. Potter — bring your notes.” 

Weasley shot a murderous look over his shoulder as he left the dungeon, but Potter was almost impressively calm as she strode toward his desk, a single piece of parchment clutched in her hand. He could see from his desk that it was nearly blank.

Arrogant brat.

Her father had adopted the same attitude often enough, that cocky pretense of composure. The girl’s free hand stuffed deep in her pocket gave her away, though. He doubted she was even aware of the little twitches in her fingers as she stood otherwise motionless in front of his desk. Idiot child probably thought herself a master of subtlety. He stifled a derisive snort and decided to let James Potter’s spawn stew for a few minutes as he straightened the papers on his desk. 

“Er, professor?” she asked when she could no longer stand the tension — and that irritating tremble was back in her voice. He didn’t buy it for a minute. Her father had never attempted to feign such meekness, but then, he had never had the natural advantage of being a fey wisp of an eleven-year-old girl. Add in that scar — more gruesome than her legend made it out to be, forking across her eye like that — and she was a creature tailor-made to inspire sympathy. She’d have the whole staff wrapped around her little finger in a fortnight, he was sure, but he refused to be drawn in. “Potter,” he grunted without looking  up from his papers.

“I-I know you w-wanted to t-talk to me about my performance today, but… I-I was w-wondering if I could speak to you for a moment first. Please, sir?”

Snape set the papers down and fixed her with a long, appraising stare. He almost couldn’t believe her audacity — ordered to stay behind for her own arrogance, and here she was, trying to take control for herself. In spite of his irritation, he found himself intrigued… How far would she push? How brazen would this particular Potter’s lies become? He could practically hear her scheming, and a flicker of dark amusement crossed his features.

“Very well, Potter,” he said at last, leaning back in his chair with a mocking flourish. “You have my undivided attention. Try me.”

She knew at once she’d made things worse. He could see it in her eyes before she dropped them to the floor once more. “It’s, er, it’s about class today. I don’t want you to think —“

Snape cut her off, unaccountably disappointed in the little fiend for not daring to aim for more. He felt like he’d lit a firework, only to watch it fizzle. “I am not in the habit of returning house points once they have been lost, Miss Potter. Among us little people at least, choices have consequences. If that’s all —”

“It’s not that, sir,” she hastened to explain, surprising him once more. Most students were only too eager to latch onto anything that resembled a dismissal from his presence, and no one — ever — interrupted him. “I-I understand. I just… I live with my aunt and uncle, you see. They’re muggles.”

Snape didn’t answer, but the girl plowed doggedly on.

“Well, th-there was an a-accident at the end of the summer, sir. S-some of my potions ingredients spilled in my trunk, and I didn’t know w-what to do... M-my relatives thought I might get help at school?”

She swallowed hard, then reached into her bag and pulled out a horror of a textbook. The entire mold-stained cover slid off as she moved to set it on his desk, and a handful of ragged pages scattered as the book block landed on his desk with a damp thud.

“S-sorry!” The girl scrambled to gather up loose pages and tuck them back into the cover with her trembling hands.

Snape ignored the girl in favor of inspecting the ruined book. He recognized what had happened at once. For an instant, he was back in the little shed in the woods between their houses, and it was Lily standing before him, red-eyed and furious. 

“Tuney dumped water in my trunk! Just look at my Charms essay!”

And then the present snapped back into focus. This girl — not Lily — was not tearful. Not indignant. She was too calm, too conniving. She said there’d been an accident. She didn’t blame her her mother’s sister, but this was classic Petunia, and spoiled Prince Potter had had no siblings. It didn’t add up.

“You live with Petunia?” he clarified, watching her closely. 

Potter looked startled, her eyes — Lily’s eyes, damn them — going wide before she dropped her gaze again. “Er — yes, sir.”

That brief glance was telling. She was not stricken by shame or grief. What he caught instead was eagerness, then hesitation, and the unmistakable urge to cover something up. She’d miscalculated then. Slipped up somehow. He just couldn’t see the shape of it yet.

For a heartbeat, temptation clawed at him. He could pierce through the lie with the barest flick of his will, strip her excuses and half-baked cover stories away. One push, and the truth would be his. But, no — Dumbledore would never forgive such an intrusion. Not that he would forgive himself, either. Potter or not, she was a spoiled child covering up her own idiocy, not a Death Eater plotting destruction. So he would read her the hard way, in every twitch, every falter, every careless word.

She was talking again, a nervous babble that he was sure would melt the hearts of the less circumspect staff. “I-I thought, sir, since you’d talked so much about safety with our potions ingredients, and most of the damage is from my kit… D-do you think you could —“

He cut her off once more, with a nod this time, deciding to get it over with. He had never thought twice about helping Lily when it had been her school things. He could do this for her daughter — and perhaps mail a discreet hex to good old Tuney for old times’ sake — and then consider his vow to protect the brat fulfilled. After that, he could go back to hating James Potter’s spawn in peace.

“I will meet you at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower at three o’clock this afternoon, Potter. I will inspect your things then.”

Genuine surprise flickered across her features. Then a stab of panic, quickly hidden. “Oh. Er, th-thank you, sir,” she squeaked. “B-but…”

Snape’s lip curled. Her gratitude was as transparently false as every other word out of her mouth since she’d set foot in this classroom. He let the silence spool out, savoring how she scrambled to invent an excuse to dodge him. She looked everywhere but at him — a sure sign she was hiding something. She had asked for his help, but it was becoming increasingly clear she didn’t actually want it. Why, he could not fathom.

She was a schemer.

Just like James.

Snape waited.

“It’s just — I don’t want to be any t-trouble for you, sir. N-not more than I was in class today, I mean.” 

Bringing up his annoyance with her was a masterful attempt at manipulation, at least for an eleven-year-old. She was trying to get ahead of him, like backburning a firebreak to stop a wildfire. He continued to wait. She clearly knew that whatever she was trying to avoid would make him furious, and that nervous tic in her pocket had started up again, a sharp, rhythmic twitch. She had audacity, but she was no Slytherin. All he needed to do was wait.

“I j-just thought, since I know you must be terribly busy… if there was just a spell or something that you could show me to, er, s-straighten it all out?”

For one stunned instant, Snape could only stare. Then panic unfurled like a snargaluff in his chest. Melted cauldrons, scorched skin, toxic fumes wafting through Gryffindor Tower… The ignorant little menace could kill her entire house with her foolishness!

“I thought you said you’d paid attention to the lesson today, Potter!” His voice cracked like a whip, rising as he surged to his feet. “Did nothing manage to sink into that swollen head of yours? Magic and potions ingredients are never — I repeat, never — a safe combination! Unless a recipe specifically calls for it — an advanced technique you are a decade from mastering, at the least! — then meddling by magic with a single grain, a single drop of an alchemical substance, can have life-altering consequences!”

Her eyes were teary now, to be sure! He pressed on, each word clipped and deadly. “So no, there is not a convenient little charm to ‘straighten it all out.’ That dangerously idiotic notion is the sort of stunt that might earn you a trip to St. Mungo’s, if it didn’t kill you outright. The only reason it isn’t costing you fifty points this instant is that you had the wit — barely — to ask before attempting it yourself.”

She ducked her head as if the words themselves had struck her, yet still she pressed on, still determined to play him. “B-but —“

“I will come,” he said coldly, and she flinched again, “at three o’clock. Do not mistake that for a suggestion, Miss Potter.” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of the ruined textbook on his desk. He let the silence stretch until she at last glanced up. He caught her gaze and dared her to look away, lowering his voice to a dangerous hiss. “And if you should think to wriggle out of it, or if I discover you have meddled with your things despite my explicit warning…”

He paused, savoring the tension, ensuring she could not mistake him.

“…then I will strip fifty points for your idiocy, another fifty for your stubbornness, and I will see that you spend every evening of the next month scouring this dungeon until it gleams. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered hoarsely.

He stared at her until she at last lost her nerve and looked away. Then he dropped back into his chair and flicked his hand in dismissal. “Out.”

***

As the bells above the greenhouses chimed three o’clock, Snape was pacing the seventh-floor landing, growing more irritated every time he passed the portrait of the Fat Lady who guarded Gryffindor Tower. He was sure Potter was wasting his time. He had his seventh years’ project proposals to go over yet this afternoon, as well as the aftermath of that disastrous lesson with the third years — the dungeons would reek of lavender for days.

And of course, Princess Potter was going to be fashionably late.

He had had time to calm down from his initial surge of panic, and he was reasonably confident that he’d scared the girl badly enough this morning to ensure she wouldn’t do anything foolish on her own. Still, dealing with her at all was an annoyance. She was not, after all, a student in his house. The whole mess should have fallen to Minerva, but if there truly was an issue with the girl’s potions kit, he’d only be called in anyway. Better to handle it himself — and deny the brat any further attention.

Finally, as the last chime faded away, uneven footsteps echoed up the stairs, announcing Potter’s imminent arrival. She skidded around the last corner, clutching a stitch in her side, but as soon as she saw Snape, she shoved her hands in her pockets again, where they immediately began to twitch with that same ridiculous tic. 

“S-sorry, sir,” she gasped, her voice tinged with pain. “I g-got lost. N-Nick —”

Snape rolled his eyes, cutting her off with a raised hand. “Catch your breath, Potter. I have no patience for your theatrics.” 

He noted with satisfaction the brief look of irritation that crossed her features. Frustrated that he refused to be distracted, no doubt. He gave her a minute to stop panting, then gestured for her to lead the way. “After you, Potter.”

The girl cast one wary glance at Snape, then leaned forward to whisper the password to the Fat Lady.

“Caput draconis,” he drawled loudly, just for the brief satisfaction of making her flinch. “I am a staff member, Potter. Do use your brain.”

The portrait swung forward, and Snape followed Potter into the warm, red-toned common room. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d entered Gryffindor Tower, and he had never quite shaken the feeling of walking blindly into enemy territory. At least the room was empty on this visit; the weather was fine enough that everyone with a free period was outside, enjoying the grounds.

Potter froze for a moment at the base of the stairs to the girls’ dormitory, but Snape’s raised eyebrow was enough to get her moving again. She hurried upward, tucking her elbow in tight to that stitch in her side again, clearly still determined to play for sympathy. Snape ignored it. In the first year dorm, she stopped, pale and trembling slightly, in front of a trunk that sat beneath a window overlooking the Forbidden Forest.

“Open it,” he snapped, irritated by her feigned weakness. 

Potter fumbled with the latch, lifted the lid, and stepped back, timid as a mouse. Snape did not move. He had been ready for damp pages, for a smashed jar or two. Perhaps the lingering stench of mold, judging by the stains on the textbook Potter had showed him.

This, though… 

This was utter ruin. Senseless vandalism, compounded to the point of absurdity by the girl’s own negligence in the aftermath. The damage was weeks old, at least, judging by the cloying, syrupy scent of sprouted alihotsy seeds he could detect amidst the rot. He could scarcely wrap his mind around the magnitude of it.

“I warn you, Potter,” he said at last, his voice low and dangerous. “Any attempt to lie to me will result in the loss of house points — at the very least.”

“Yes, sir,” she said evenly  and Snape’s eyes narrowed. She was cool and assessing, of course, plotting her next lie already.

“Who damaged your supplies?”

“I-I think my cousin did it, sir,” she said after a moment’s hesitation, her voice very small, as if she were conceding something against her will. 

One eyebrow rose, his disbelief plain. As a child, Petunia Evans had never had the stomach for the “nastier” potions ingredients, as she’d dubbed the oils and the tinctures, the insects and the animal parts. As an adult, with her absolute lack of magic rubbed once again in her face, he wholly believed she could have managed this in a fit of temper. Still, he needed the truth from Potter. He decided on another tactic to pry it loose.

“You did not do it yourself, then? To avoid preparing for school? To garner pity, perhaps? Or merely attention?”

Potter’s eyes flickered. Anger flashed like lightning over the surface of her thoughts, edged with horror — and yes, a faint shimmer of shame. She was at least partly to blame then, or else his accusation was closer to the truth than he’d supposed, and she didn’t like being found out.

But then, just as swiftly, her expression emptied, her roiling thoughts smoothing like glass. It set his teeth on edge — a Potter with that level of self-control. He felt again that maddening urge to reach for Legilimency, to skip straight past all her attempts at manipulation, and get to the truth, once and for all. He resisted, and he was rewarded after only a moment with what he was sure was a well-rehearsed recitation, an attempt at regaining control.

“I bought my school things at the end of July with Hagrid. My relatives don’t like magic and put my trunk away, f-for safekeeping.” There — that stammer, the hitch that betrayed the lie. “I was running late for the train yesterday, and I didn’t have a chance to open my trunk until I was nearly here. I didn’t know what they did.”

Snape let the silence stretch as he considered her use of the plural. They. Another slip, another tally against the girl. Perhaps Tuney’s dear husband had joined in her favorite pastime. It was no real stretch to imagine it — he’d have to be a nasty piece of work to voluntarily put up with her vitriol.

“And how, pray tell,” Snape asked at last, each syllable dripping with sarcasm, “did you manage to pack for school, if you did not open your trunk until you were on the train?”

“My aunt packed for me,” Potter snapped.

Snape’s lip curled slightly in relief and satisfaction. He had the measure of her now: too angry to keep her mouth shut, too defensive to realize how much she gave away with every retort. He had only to keep her that way.

“Your doting aunt,” he drawled, lifting a sock from the top of the pile, pinched carefully between his fingernails. Something greyish and stinking oozed from the top of it, and he sneered in disgust as he dropped it back into the trunk. “She failed to mention the month’s worth of rot she found when packing your underthings?”

The girl blanched, and he had his confirmation. Smart enough to know when she was caught, at least. “That’s at least three lies I’ve counted, Potter,” he said silkily, “so I think we’ll make it thirty points. I suggest you quit while you’re behind. Otherwise, I fear you may single-handedly ruin Gryffindor’s chances at winning the House Cup on your very first day. I doubt even your most adoring fans would stand by you then.” 

He let that sink in a moment or two before continuing. "Now then, Miss Potter, your aunt is responsible for this disaster, is she not?"

But to his utter disbelief, the stubborn, idiotic child actually shook her head. 

"No?"

She shook her head again. "Y-you were right, sir," she said. She spoke very quickly, as though trying to get out all the words before she lost her nerve. "I did it."

Snape stared at her, incredulous. "And why on earth would you have destroyed your own school things, Potter?"

Her fingers were twitching in her pockets again, and it was a moment before she answered, her cheeks flushing red. "I-I hoped to get n-new things, sir. I d-didn't like the ones Hagrid helped me get, and m-my aunt and uncle w-wouldn’t buy me new ones."

The infuriating child was so clearly lying, but he could not see what she could possibly hope to gain from taking the blame like this. He stared her down for a moment, but she just stood there, blank-faced and blushing. 

Stubborn, arrogant child.

"Fine,” Snape said at last, turning back to the trunk. Whatever she claimed, she was clearly unhappy about the state of her trunk, so he’d twist that knife until she gave in. “Let's just see how many of your unsatisfactory school supplies we'll be replacing then, shall we?" 

Snape cast a bubble-like shield over her trunk and then used a levitation charm on the contents, making it rise into the air so they could both see it. A series of pops and cracks like firecrackers burst out from near the bottom of the mass, letting off tiny flashes of blue-green light. 

“Dried chizpurfles responding to the levitation charm,” Snape said, as though lecturing in class. "Without the creatures’ ability to metabolize it, the influx of magic bursts the carapace and severs the limbs and fangs from the main body, sometimes quite violently.”

“Yes, sir,” Nella mumbled, flinching at another volley of pops.

“In an enclosed space, a mere teaspoon of exploding chizpurfles can generate the force and accompanying carnage of a muggle shotgun. The shield should be enough, but stay well back.”

Potter took two more steps away. “Yes, sir.”

Snape waved his wand a few times, peeling various items away from the congealed mass of her school supplies. A dented cauldron covered in stinksap and iridescent fungus. A crushed telescope with a shattered lens. Broken bottles and mangled quills. Ragged bits of parchment and slimy fabric studded with shining, black beetle eyes and bloated, pickled slugs. Something that must have once been a set of brass scales, but now resembled a gnarled tree root. 

“Armadillo bile and wormwood,” Snape growled, his temper flaring. “A highly corrosive combination. It’s a miracle this didn’t eat right through the bottom of your trunk.”

Some items refused to be separated from the main mass. Others dripped sluggishly as they were magically pulled away. More chizpurfles exploded every now and then, making Potter jump every time. The alihotsy seeds he'd detected earlier had rooted through a textbook. Strange colors began to flicker along one side of the shield, and smoke gathered at the top of the bubble, but Snape didn’t bother to explain either phenomenon to the child. He remained silent as he continued his inspection, and every flick of his wand was sharper and more abrupt than the last. His fury was rising at the criminal disregard for the danger of such destruction.

Potter, for her own part, hovered silent and pale as a ghost at the edge of his vision. Her face was cold and blank, revealing nothing. Only the continued, rhythmic twitching of her hands in her pockets betrayed her discomfort.

“Is anything here of sentimental value, Potter?” Snape grated out when it became clear she wasn’t going to break. He’d seen enough. Everything was ruined.

She nearly choked in surprise at being directly addressed. “W-what?”

“Sentimental value, Potter,” he repeated, enunciating each syllable. “Tender feelings. Are you attached to anything in this trunk?”

Again, the anger flickered in her eyes, but she smothered it ruthlessly. “Er, no. No, sir.”

Snape nodded once and waved his wand over the whole mess. “Evanesco.” There were a few more pops, and something hissed violently, and then the bubble vanished with the entire mess inside it. Snape turned to face her. “And your wand? It was not in the trunk.”

The girl seemed hardly to hear him. 

"Potter!" he barked. She flinched and looked up, dragging the back of her hand across her runny nose. "Where is your wand?"

“It’s fine, sir.”

Snape ground his teeth at the brat's obstinance, but he made an effort to keep his tone even. Stubborn as she was, he didn't want to have to fight her about this, too. He had better things to do. He pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache he could already feel coming on. “Potter, you have seen the power of uncontrolled alchemical reactions firsthand. A damaged wand is, if anything, even more potentially dangerous. Miscast spells can backfire with catastrophic results. I need to inspect it.”

“It’s not damaged,” Potter insisted, taking a step backward, toward the bed. 

Snape’s face twisted in furious exasperation. “Once again, Potter, you seem to be laboring under the mistaken impression that I am making a mere suggestion. You will produce your wand for me — now — or I will begin assigning detentions for your foolish pride.”

“It-it’s not damaged,” the girl croaked, backing up further. “I told them H-Hagrid kept it.”

Snape huffed out a mirthless laugh of satisfaction. Them. He kept his focus, though — he would have the foolish child’s wand before she could use it to blow anyone up. “I don’t care if you told Petunia your wand was on the moon, Potter. That’s one detention for arguing. Would you like to try for more?”

He held out his hand expectantly, but she backed into the edge of the bed, shaking her head. “S-sir, I — I convinced them Hagrid had my wand. Truly. They never —“

“Two detentions, Potter,” Snape interrupted. “I know you are used to having your own way, but I assure you, I am not a member of your fan club. Now — Show. Me. Your. Wand.”

She raised her chin. “No.”

That single syllable snapped the last thread of his patience. Arrogant. Defiant. Potter’s child through and through. “Three detentions, then,” he said with studied calm. His wand hand slashed through air. “Accio wand.”

The wand tore free of her pocket and arced through the air toward his hand, but Potter lunged, swearing at him like a guttersnipe. She shoved him hard in the chest and snatched the wand back mid-flight. She clutched the thing to her chest, panting, her wild eyes showing quite clearly that she knew she was cornered against the bed with nowhere to run.

Snape turned slowly to face her, straightening his robes.

“Impedimenta.”

She tried to curl around her wand instinctively, but her body stiffened as the Impediment Jinx caught her like a fly in amber. Snape closed the distance between them in three strides and plucked the wand from her unresisting fingers. Her face shifted from red to purple to pale white as she strained against the jinx, managing only a strangled cry as her face slowly twisted with fury. Her struggle was utterly useless, of course, but a part of Snape was mildly impressed. He squashed the sentiment ruthlessly.

The wand was, remarkably, intact. A quick diagnostic confirmed it — no cracks, no warping, not a speck of contamination. What stung most was the girl’s apparent success. Lily had spent countless hours finding ways to fend off her sister’s attempts at sabotage, and yet this foolish little girl had had the foresight to avoid the problem altogether with one simple lie. Merlin — he was lucky he hadn’t ended up with Potter’s spawn in his own house!

Another choked noise of protest pulled his attention back to the girl.

“Stop fighting it before you hurt yourself, idiot girl,” Snape said sharply. She did not stop. Her only response was to twitch her fingers slightly, curling them toward claws. He snapped his own fingers impatiently, and her gaze jerked up at him for a moment, then returned immediately to her wand in his hand. 

The panic was plain — not defiance, not mischief, but a single-minded determination he recognized. She could not stand to see her wand in an enemy’s hand. And of course he was her enemy in this moment. Having been raised among muggles, this was likely her first experience of being jinxed, and the abrupt loss of control was undoubtedly terrifying. 

James Potter’s face rose unbidden in his mind, and his heart raced with remembered panic. Nausea churned through his stomach, but he couldn’t release her like this. The girl’s entire body trembled as she fought against the hold of the spell, determined to break free, to get to him, to take the wand back. It would be safer, far safer, to keep the girl disarmed until she could calm herself. And yet — could he expect her to have a reasonable reaction to anything else if she was this fixated on the wand? Belatedly, he realized she likely believed he intended to vanish it as he had her school trunk.

He snapped his fingers again to regain her attention. “Eyes on me, Potter.” He held the wand up so she could still see it while she obeyed. His gaze flicked to her hands, already twitching laboriously toward the wand again, and he resisted the urge to scold her anew. It would not help matters. “Your wand is fine,” he said slowly and clearly. “I will return it once you have calmed down.”

A tear slipped down her cheek, and he rolled his eyes, unmoved by her theatrics. 

“You are up to five detentions now, as I will not tolerate being sworn at or pushed. I will release the jinx momentarily, but I warn you: if you throw yourself at me again — as I suspect you are currently contemplating with great enthusiasm — I will see you in detention for the rest of the term. If you attempt to raise your wand on me after I return it, you will be expelled.”

He let that sink in as he watched another couple of tears fall, then flicked his wand to banish the jinx. To his surprise, Potter lurched sideways, rather than forward. He caught her arm, ignoring her flinch, and guided her firmly backward to sit on the edge of the bed. He tossed her wand down onto the coverlet beside her, but she made no move to reclaim it. Instead, she sat very still, her eyes downcast. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” she whispered, so softly that he almost missed it. “I — panicked.”

“I noticed,” Snape said dryly. “Put your wand away, Potter.”

She did so, her hands trembling so badly she nearly dropped it, and still she did not look at him. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” Snape said with a thin edge of sarcasm. “So you said.”

The girl wiped her face with the edge of her sleeve, and Snape hissed, thrusting a handkerchief at her. She accepted it meekly, and as her fingers brushed his, he suddenly realized why his attention had been so often drawn to her hands.

“You foolish girl! Let me see!”

Potter looked up sharply, going white as a sheet.

“Your hands,” Snape clarified through clenched teeth. “Let me see what you’ve done to your hands.”

The obstinate girl looked for a moment as though she might actually hide them behind her back like a sulky toddler.

“Detention, Potter,” he said crisply. “That makes six. I will remind you that I am not a patient man, and you have an entire year available for detentions. I will not ask again.” He held his hand out expectantly.

Slowly, as though she still thought she could thwart him, the girl clenched her hands into tight fists before reluctantly holding them out before her.

Snape caught her wrists before she could change her mind. His grip was firm but mindful of the damage. “Open,” he ordered.

She obeyed, fingers trembling as they unfurled. He surveyed the damage with an unfortunately practiced eye. 

“Idiot child! Tell me you were not foolish enough to put your bare hands into that— that— There isn’t even a word for it! Why on earth would you ever wish to touch it?”

Angry blisters stretched between her fingers. Raw patches of peeling skin ringed her fingernails — powdered nettle, perhaps, or asphodel, if it had begun to ferment. One of the nails was split, the bed beneath hideously swollen. Crusted sores crept toward her wrists, ringed with the telltale orange stain left behind by salamander blood.

Potter remained stubbornly silent.

“I would expect even a muggle to have enough sense to at least put on gloves! Are you truly that stupid?”

She clenched her fists again in anger at his accusation, and he was sure, if her hands had been free, she would have hit him. 

Foolish, pig-headed little idiot. 

“Open!”

He turned her hands over, tilting them toward the light from the dormitory window. Her palms were worse. The blistering there was irregular: some areas raised and fluid-filled, other patches white-edged and wrinkled, the skin ready to slough off at the slightest provocation. There were several places on her fingers where there was simply no skin left, and he took a moment to be grudgingly impressed by the sheer force of will it must take to even move her hands in that condition.

Impressive or not, the recklessness she’d demonstrated was intolerable. He pressed both her thin wrists into one hand, freeing the other to rummage in his pockets for the vial of dittany he carried for emergencies. “Speak, Potter! Or did you decide to lick the inside of your trunk, too?”

“My gloves were in my trunk!” she spat, twisting her wrists in his grasp.

“Watch your tone, girl,” Snape said lowly, tightening his grip before she could do any further harm to herself. “You have been beyond foolish, and I will not spare your feelings on the matter. You are fortunate you still have fingers!” 

He found the bottle of dittany at last and unscrewed the dropper top one-handed, refusing to give her the chance to pull away. He braced himself, and she flinched as he scattered a few drops of the oil across her palms, but she did at least refrain from actively fighting him as he used the handkerchief to work it briskly into the sores and blisters.

Some of the blisters would have to be lanced eventually, but he thought back to the girl’s atrocious handwriting that morning and decided the pain of that could wait until the dittany had begun to ease the rest. He focused on the open wounds first and foremost.

 “Other side.” 

She obeyed immediately — learning at last.

“I-I’m sorry, sir,” Potter ventured quietly after a long silence. “I th-thought it was just water damage at first.”

Snape only grunted, inspecting the split nail again. The dittany would help, but the injury would likely need more attention than that.

“I thought I could s-save something.”

Snape bit back his first instinct to scoff. Instead, he asked quietly, “And when it started to burn?”

“I washed my hands,” Potter said, a defensive edge creeping back into her tone. "Like if it had been bleach or something. Those bottles always say to dilute with water."

Snape felt the stirrings of impatience return, but he reminded himself that the girl had, in fact, apologized. He worked a little more dittany into a deep burn at the base of her thumb while he considered his answer. “You were unbelievably lucky, Potter. I trust you saw the melted ruin this made of your scales?”

Potter nodded.

He stoppered the bottle and returned it to his pocket. “You are not to wash your hands for at least ten minutes. And for Merlin’s sake, Potter, exercise a modicum of common sense this time — do not touch your eyes or mouth while the dittany is still on your skin, unless you wish to spend the evening in the Hospital Wing.”

“Yes, sir.”

Snape vanished the handkerchief with a flick of his wand. “You will meet me in the Entrance Hall in one hour.” 

“S-sir?”

“I must go down to the village to purchase certain specialized ingredients for my seventh years’ research projects. You will accompany me so we might replace your school supplies. You will serve your first detention with me afterward, at which time we will discuss — at length — your penchant for lying and your criminal disregard for today's lecture on safety. ”

He expected her to argue, but she only nodded. “Yes, sir.” 

“One hour. Do not be late.”

“Of course not, sir. Th-thank you for your help.”

The words, so unexpectedly deferential, gave him pause. He eyed her narrowly, suddenly doubting both her intentions and her ability to follow even the simplest instructions — given his reputation, few would doubt the story if she tried to get out of detention by claiming he'd poisoned her. Better safe than sorry. With a flick of his wand, he conjured bandages that wound themselves snugly around her hands. She looked startled, then whispered her thanks once more.

“One hour,” he repeated. “Set out early if you are yet unsure of the way.” She nodded, and he swept from the dormitory, his robes snapping at his heels.

Chapter Text

The headmaster’s office smelled of tea and old books, but the familiar scent did nothing to soothe his frayed temper. Snape knew why he had been summoned. He sat stiff-backed in the chintz armchair across from Dumbledore, scowling at a dish of sweets on the desk between them as though it had personally insulted him. 

"How is Draco today?”

Snape’s expression soured further. “Avoiding me,” he said flatly. 

“Understandable,” Dumbledore murmured. “That was quite the declaration he made last night.” His tone was mild, but the concern behind it was plain. “Have you written to his parents yet?”

“Not yet. The Potter issue has taken up rather a lot of my attention.”

“Ah, yes… I did hear the two of you got off to a rocky start this morning,” Dumbledore said with an infuriating twinkle. 

“I suppose she’s been whining about the detentions," Snape growled.

“Not at all, Severus. Sherbet lemon?” 

Snape did not dignify the offer with a response. Dumbledore plucked a sweet from the dish and made a production of unwrapping it and folding the square of cellophane into a tiny, yellow-tinted swan. Delicate silver instruments whirred and clicked on their shelves around the office. In the corner, the portrait of Phineas Nigellus gave a grunting snore, for once having truly fallen asleep, instead of merely feigning it. 

Still, Snape waited. He was not Potter, twitchy and impatient. He could wait out even the headmaster.

At last, Dumbledore sighed. “I saw the points go this morning, of course, but it was Sir Nicholas who brought the matter more fully to my attention. It seems the Gryffindor prefects are leading a first-year Charms study group this evening, and Nella will be unable to attend. I understand there was some issue with her school supplies?” 

“Only her entire potions kit smashed into her trunk and left to ferment for half the summer!” Snape snapped. “No doubt she spread her tale of woe far and wide. She is as lazy, attention-seeking, and self-serving as her father. ” 

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. “Hagrid tells me he has found her rather sweet.” 

Snape snorted. “Hagrid would call a manticore sweet.” 

“A manticore! Severus, you surprise me!” 

“You would not look so amused if she had come to you looking to spell the mess in her trunk back into order! I trust you need no reminders of what happens when a vanishing spell is applied to salamander blood, or a cleaning charm to spine of lionfish, headmaster?” 

At that, Dumbledore winced, and Snape pressed his advantage. “The arrogant child argued with me when I told her I would check her trunk myself, and she refused point-blank to let me examine her wand for damage. When I insisted, she threw a tantrum.”

Dumbledore merely raised an eyebrow, entirely too indulgent for Snape’s liking. He growled again at being forced to defend himself in this. Were it any other student, his choice of consequence would not be questioned. “The girl screamed obscenities at me and then shoved me nearly to the floor like we were some common muggle brawlers!” 

“I see.” Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully. “In that case, allow me to express my surprise that she is not in detention for the next month, at least. That was the punishment you assigned Mr. Turner for his foul language last year, was it not? And the physical altercation seems to warrant something more. I cannot recall any student ever daring to lay hands on you before, Severus. Perhaps another month?” 

Snape rose, pacing before the windows. “You are determined to misunderstand me, Headmaster! First I am the villain; now I am a soft touch?”

“Of course not, Severus. I only seek to understand what happened today.”

Snape snorted, realizing with a spike of horror that Dumbledore was steering him through his own tantrum. He took a steadying breath. “Give me credit for some objectivity, Dumbledore. I do have eyes in my head. The girl was distraught at the loss of her belongings. She pulled herself together when given the chance — even apologized in the aftermath — but she must learn that her choices have consequences. If no one holds her to account, she will never learn self-control. Given the girl’s fame, that is a recipe for disaster."

“Of course,” Dumbledore murmured, infuriatingly calm.

"And the matter of safety remains!” The words came out sharper than Snape intended, but he pressed on. “The girl has all the sense of a concussed erumpent! She had already mangled her own hands trying to deal with the damage herself, and she hadn’t the intelligence to go to the Hospital Wing! The wrong spell might have killed half your precious Gryffindors today. I cannot have spoiled, inattentive children putting my class at risk. I will not have it, Dumbledore. If you dislike the word ‘detention’ so much, then consider them remedial lessons. She learned nothing at all from my first lecture on safety, and that, at least, I intend to correct. You may tell Hagrid and Sir Nicholas and the rest of the Potter Fan Club the same, and invite them to kindly keep their noses out of my classroom.” 

Dumbledore raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “My apologies, Severus. I ought not to have doubted you.” 

Snape stared out the window for a long moment, jaw tight. He had made his point, but still, he was unhappy. Finally, he realized why. “Petunia used to do this to her mother, when we were in school,” he murmured at last. The words ached in his chest, but it was an old hurt, long since scabbed-over. Dumbledore was one of the few people before whom he would dare expose it, and the lack of reaction behind him told him quite plainly that the headmaster had been waiting for just such an admission. His pride stung, but he didn’t let that stop him. “Jealous, always… She’d wreck whatever she could get her hateful hands on.” He took a breath. “It seems she has not outgrown such pettiness.” 

He sighed and turned back to face Dumbledore, who was wisely folding another swan out of cellophane instead of gazing pityingly at Snape. “Was there truly no one else who could have taken the child?” Snape asked softly. “Lily worshiped her older sister, of course — she was too good not to.” Those words twisted the pain sharper, but Snape was used to that, too. “But Petunia Evans was always a selfish creature. She cannot have been a good influence.” 

“Sirius Black was her intended guardian,” Dumbledore said softly, glancing up at last and grimacing at the look of fury that crossed Snape’s face. “Or Alice Longbottom. And after the Longbottom incident, many families put in offers for Nella’s care. The Malfoys, the Notts, the Parkinsons —“ 

Snape held up a hand. “I see. No need to belabor the point.” 

“A blood relationship was the only thing that saved Nella going to the highest bidder. I have no doubt that Petunia saved Nella’s life in taking her in.” 

“We should have a parade,” Snape muttered. 

Dumbledore’s expression softened, and he sat back in his chair. “Did you know she wrote to me once? Petunia, I mean. She must have been about thirteen, I would guess. Wrote me asking if she could come to Hogwarts, too. Told me she’d already been studying, and that she could certainly do magic, if only I’d let her have a wand.” 

Snape sneered at the memory of all the dirty tricks Petunia had tried to get her hands on Lily’s wand. “If you are attempting to make me feel sympathy for Petunia Evans, Headmaster, you are wasting your breath.” 

“Not sympathy,” Dumbledore said gently. “Perspective. I beg you, Severus, do not fall into the same trap as Petunia. She let her hurt blind her to everything but the sister she had lost. But Nella is not Lily. Nor is she James. She is her own person — and she has known neither of the parents we remember so keenly.” 

Snape’s jaw worked, but no words came forth. 

“I will remind Petunia as much when I send her the bill for today’s purchases. Speaking of which… Would you prefer Minerva take Miss Potter into the village this afternoon, Severus? As her Head of House, it would be a perfectly acceptable alternative.” 

Snape’s lip curled in irritation. “I have already spoken with Minerva; she has no objection to my taking her. I must go into the village this afternoon anyway. There are ingredients I require for my seventh years’ research projects, now that their proposals are submitted, so I see no sense in dragging Minerva away from the rest of her own duties.”

To his credit, Dumbledore did not press the point any further. “Very well,” he said, settling back into his chair. “In that case, I wish you an uneventful trip and a swift return.” 

Snape inclined his head in curt acknowledgment. He turned to leave.

“Ah, Severus?”

He turned back to look at the headmaster, who was looking slightly pained.

“When you do write Narcissa, please take care what you include of this business with Nella. I would understand, of course, if you felt the need to vent your frustrations, or reassure Lucius he is still trusted after Draco was so transparent at the Sorting Ceremony last night. But beware of giving away more than we intend at this juncture.”

Snape’s eyes narrowed. He understood well enough: Lucius had set the board, and Dumbledore intended to use an eleven-year-old girl to counter him. The thought turned his stomach. He drew himself up, voice cool and precise. “Lucius Malfoy is not the Dark Lord, Headmaster,” he said, as close to a refusal as he dared. “And I am not Lucius Malfoy.”

Chapter Text

“Miss Potter.”

Nella froze on the stairs. Her aches sharpened as her heart rate spiked. The crowd on the enormous marble staircase melted away for the Deputy Headmistress, and through her panic, Nella felt a hot pinch of jealousy. Of course they’d move for her. Of course they couldn’t possibly stay in the way now.

She forced herself to come down the last few steps and keep her voice even. “Yes, ma’am?”

McGonagall swept past her and pushed open the door to an empty classroom across from the Great Hall. The door had barely shut before she rounded on Nella.

“I have just had a visit from Professor Snape. Would you care to explain how one of my new Gryffindors has managed to secure not one, but six detentions on her very first day of class?”

Nella tried very hard to stand still, her cheeks burning. She flexed her bandaged fingers, trying to guess how best to answer McGonagall. She simply didn’t know enough about any of these people, and panic beat like a trapped bird in her chest.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” she ventured at last. “I — there was a misunderstanding.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“A misunderstanding! Miss Potter! Pray, tell me what sort of misunderstanding you could possibly have had on this scale! You are aware — I hope — that you are to abide by the rules and instructions set down by every adult in this school?”

“I am, ma’am.” She sucked in a breath and blinked hard, but that bird in her chest was choking her. She sucked in another breath and counted to four before releasing it. She had to calm down. She had to try to get the words out before she made things even worse. “M-my school things were damaged at the end of the summer,” she said. “I asked P-Professor Snape to help me b-because the damage came from m-my potions kit. My things couldn’t be saved, so he vanished them. Then, when he asked for my wand right after, I — I guess I panicked.”

McGonagall pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes tightly. “Child,” she said as though she were trying very hard to remain calm herself, “please tell me you did not raise your wand on Professor Snape.”

“N-no! Of course not!” Nella blurted, remembering Snape’s horrifying threat of expulsion. She couldn’t go back to the Dursleys. She couldn’t let anyone think she might deserve to! She hastened to explain. “It’s just — I refused to show it to him. And then — I-I may have b-been rather rude when he tried to summon it off me with a spell.”

“’May have been,’ Potter? The six detentions left you unsure?”

“N-no, ma’am!” Her words tumbled over each other in her haste. McGonagall was actually listening to her; she couldn’t waste this chance, couldn’t let her misunderstand. “I’m sure I was. I just — I don’t remember exactly what I s-said. I m-may have sworn at him? I was worried about my wand! But the look on his face — I think I swore, ma’am. A-and p-pushed him. I pushed him away.”

She dared a glance up. McGonagall’s lips were twisted strangely — not anger, but it couldn’t possibly be amusement. The expression was gone in an instant, replaced by stern disapproval, and Nella pushed on.

“I truly didn’t mean to, Professor! I —“ Tears slipped down her cheeks again before she could stop them. She held very still, hoping McGonagall wouldn’t notice them if she didn’t move to wipe them away. “Like I said, I panicked, ma’am. He summoned the wand, and I-I thought he was going to vanish it, too, I guess. I was sure he was going to take it. But I caught it before he could, and I yelled something at him. I don’t even know what. It just came out! And he was so angry, but I truly didn’t mean —“

McGonagall raised a hand, and Nella flinched before she realized the woman was only asking for silence.

“Breathe, child,” McGonagall said more gently. “I know Professor Snape has a rather, er, forceful personality. And I understand how easy it is to overreact in a stressful situation. But to be perfectly honest, Miss Potter, you have gotten off incredibly easy. The last student to swear at Professor Snape was scrubbing bedpans in the hospital wing for a month.”

Nella nodded her understanding. 

“Perhaps he was more lenient because you did seek out his help on your own. I could not say. But now that you have crossed him, I don’t doubt he will be on the lookout for more reasons to take points and assign detentions. Do not give him any, Miss Potter. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am"

“Now, Professor Snape indicated you would be going down to the village this evening to replace your things?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m to meet him in just a few minutes.”

“I expect you to be on your very best behavior, Miss Potter. You will be polite and respectful, and you will remember that this trip is not a holiday, but a necessity. Professor Snape will not be in a good mood — he rarely is, to own the truth — but I want to hear of no further outbursts on your part. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Professor McGonagall swept out of the room, Nella sagged against a desk, her throat tight. There was nothing McGonagall had said that had been unfair. Nella had been rude. She had been foolish. She had only made things worse with Snape. But McGonagall hadn’t lashed out. She’d waited for Nella to explain herself. She’d even seemed to understand, or at least accept her reason for acting as she had done.

But if that had been Snape showing leniency… She rubbed her bandaged hands against the edge of the desk, savoring the way the thick cotton and that strange oil dulled the sting. Even blazingly angry with her, he’d been so careful, not like Aunt Petunia with her burning antiseptic and harsh touches. But if it was likely to be worse later…

Nella made herself stand up before she could break down again, and she edged closer to the doorway. From here, she could see most of the Entrance Hall—the big doors to the grounds, the marble staircase, even the doors to the dungeons. If she just stayed here, she would see Snape the moment he came into the hall, and she wouldn’t risk being late and upsetting him again. She would be perfect.

For a while, that seemed safest — she could be ready for Snape while staying out of the way of all the students milling about the hall. 

“Ah, yes…Nella Potter, our new celebrity.”

She couldn’t stand to be out there again. The walk down from Gryffindor Tower had been bad enough, with Ron, Hermione, and Neville stuck in a study group with Percy. 

“Shopping?” Ron’s eyebrows had threatened to disappear into his hairline when she’d told her friends. “With that slimy git? After how class went today? Are you mad?”

“He’s obviously not giving her a choice in the matter, Ronald,” Hermione had sniffed.

Ron had tried to get out of the study session, to at least walk down with Nella, but Percy wasn’t having it. For a minute, Nella had feared he’d try and prevent her leaving, too, but even a prefect couldn’t argue with detention, so Nella had had to do it alone. She’d made excellent time, only getting lost once, but she couldn’t face just standing out there, where everyone could stare at her some more.

But as the clock ticked closer to the hour, she started to worry. What if Snape thought she was hiding from him? What if he came in and didn’t see her right away? What if he decided she’d been late again, on purpose this time? He already thought she was a liar — had already caught her lying, she corrected herself sharply — so he had no reason to believe her if she said she’d just been waiting out of the way.

She shifted from one foot to the other, then perched on the edge of a desk for a minute, then stood up again. Her stomach was tying itself in knots, and she recognized the familiar beginnings of panic, always so close to the surface these days. 

She had to move. She couldn’t let herself panic. She was supposed to be a Gryffindor, wasn’t she? She would be brave. She slipped out into the Entrance Hall and sat down at the bottom of the marble stairs, straight-backed, hands in her lap. From there, she was in full view of the dungeon door. He couldn’t possibly miss her. The decision made, she counted her breaths and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long.

Professor Snape swept out of the dungeons, his robes trailing behind him like storm clouds. His eyes fixed on her at once. “No more Weasley in shining armor, Potter?” he drawled, smirking slightly.

Nella shook her head. “Th-the other first years are in a study session with Percy, sir. They’re going over the Charms homework Professor Flitwick assigned today.”

Snape hummed his understanding, and Nella counted that as a victory of sorts. She hadn’t made him any angrier, at least. “Come on then, Potter.”

***

As she hurried to keep pace with Snape’s brisk stride down the long gravel drive, unaskable questions burst into Nella’s mind like raindrops spattering against a windowpane — Had he brought a school supply list? How far was the village? Did it have a secret street for wizards, like Diagon Alley? But questions weren’t allowed. That lesson had been reinforced often on Privet Drive, and Nella silently congratulated herself for remembering before she could make matters worse. She settled instead for trying to take in every detail of the journey, in case anything might give her a clue as to what she should expect on this trip.

Beyond the tall gate with its winged boar statues, the gravel drive broadened into a proper road between ancient-looking trees. Every now and then, she caught a glimpse of the lake, now glittering in the afternoon sun. 

A sharp pebble jabbed her heel, and Nella paused and hopped a little to shake it out of her ragged shoe.

“What are you doing, Potter?” Snape demanded at once.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Well, do it up here where I can see you. I don’t like you lurking behind my back.”

“I’m not ‘lurking,’” Nella snapped distractedly as she shook her shoe once more, then scurried ahead to walk even with the professor again. “I had a rock in my shoe.”

Snape’s eyes dropped to the offending shoes. “Next time, it will be five points, Potter. Watch. Your. Tone.”

She bit her lip and resolved to say nothing more.

With the pace Snape set, her ribs pinched with every breath. She longed to walk behind him again, where she could press a hand to the ache without him noticing. She remembered the way Draco’s father had healed her hand that day in Madam Malkin’s shop, and then the brisk care with which Snape had applied that oil to her hands. Part of her wanted desperately to tell him about her ribs, to ask him if he knew Mr. Malfoy’s spell, too. But the memory of his reaction the last time she’d asked for a spell was sharp in her mind.

She mentally shook herself. Even if he would agree to help her, even if it didn’t make him furious with her again, she knew better. It would be a death sentence if anyone went around asking questions on Privet Drive.

She hated herself for wanting to ask anyway.

At last, after what felt like forever, they came to a little bridge over a stream. On the far side lay a village that looked like it had leapt straight out of a storybook. Crooked old buildings leaned companionably against one another over a tangle of cobbled streets. Shop windows were cluttered with broomsticks, cauldrons, and rolls of parchment. A painted sign swung above one shop advertising fine quills. A cluster of young children dashed past them chasing a swooping owl clutching a letter. Two witches bargained cheerfully over a sack of what appeared to be shrieking radishes. Daffodils honked like geese from a window box.

This had to be a wizarding village, she realized. No one was hiding. These were whole families of witches and wizards, going about their daily lives with no fear of being “freaky.” The idea made her chest hurt inexplicably.

“Put your eyes back in your head, Potter,” Snape snapped. “We have business to attend to.”

Nella jumped and realized with a flush of embarrassment that she’d fallen a good twenty feet behind. Snape was waiting outside a shop marked Gladrags Wizardwear — Bespoke Robes since 1750.

She hurried to catch up, only to freeze again when a new panic struck at the sight of the beautiful robes in the window. “Sir, I-I don’t have much money with me. I only found a few galleons —“

Snape watched her fumble a few warped galleons out of her pocket, their surfaces bubbled and blistered by potions damage. “Put those away, Miss Potter,” he said. “Your aunt and uncle will be paying for our purchases today.”

Nella opened her mouth to argue, but Snape cut her off sharply. “Potter! Why you are so determined to shield your relatives in this is beyond me! Your fumbling lies have all but confirmed it was Petunia and her husband who did it! They are adults. They will be held accountable for their actions.”

Nella swallowed back a surge of panic. The last time she’d gotten them into that sort of trouble, she’d been seven. The doctor had even believed her lie about climbing the tree at the park, but the Dursleys had gotten a stern talking-to about adequate supervision. Nella had gotten Uncle Vernon’s belt, and then been locked in her cupboard until the cast on her arm came off. 

“B-but sir, I —“

Snape knew, though. He’d known it was Aunt Petunia almost at once. His voice dropped to a hiss. “I know you cannot yet fathom the seriousness of this stunt, Potter, but they might have killed you, along with any number of your classmates! They will be paying for the replacements. The headmaster is not giving them any choice in the matter.”

Her ribs pinched as her breath hitched. She could almost see Uncle Vernon’s face, purple with rage as he bellowed about owls, this time with a bill crumpled in his meaty fist. 

Maybe by next summer they’d have forgotten all about this? Nella doubted it, but there was the very immediate issue of the angry Potions professor to consider. She couldn’t afford to make things worse with him. Given McGonagall’s warning, she was sure she’d end up back on Privet Drive for good — and then she really would be dead. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” she mumbled, forcing herself to be small and calm and empty. “I understand.”

Snape’s eyes lingered on her, unreadable, before he turned and pulled the door open. “Inside, Potter.”

Nella had expected a shop not unlike Madam Malkin's in London. They were both clothing stores, of course, but that was where any similarity ended. Where Madam Malkin’s had been quiet and dignified, Gladrags practically hummed with otherness. 

As soon as the shop door closed behind them, several bolts of fabric zipped over to meet them like oversized dragonflies, unfurling to show off violent tartans and shimmering silks. Snape waved a hand carelessly, and they coiled themselves tight again and flitted back to their shelves. Cloaks dangled from racks along one wall, flashing between house colors and cheering things like Go Gryffindor! and Support Slytherin! every few seconds. 

A long, flowing robe in the window sprouted vibrant dahlias the size of dinner plates from the hem as she watched, and a tailored jacket beside it wafted eye-watering clouds of cologne as they walked by. She wrinkled her nose as they passed, and the mannequin straightened suddenly, throwing its hands on its hips in outrage. Nella squeaked in surprise and stumbled backward, right into Snape. 

He caught her by the arm and set her upright again. “Do try to control yourself, Potter,” he said irritably, batting away another bolt of fabric, this one patterned with black cauldrons that emitted embroidered clouds of different colors every few seconds.

Before she could even attempt an apology, a voice rang out across the chaotic shop. “Merlin’s beard! Potter? The Nella Potter?”

A young wizard with sandy hair and an alarming number of pins stuck in his jacket lapel came hurtling toward them, wand tucked carelessly behind one ear. His eyes were bright with excitement, his smile far too wide.

“You are! I see the scar! I mean, welcome to Gladrags, of course! Miss Potter, what an honor! I —“ his eager gaze flicked between Nella and Snape. “Sweet snidgets! Don’t tell me the Girl Who Lived ended up in Slytherin!” He caught the murderous look on Snape’s face and began to backpedal immediately. “That is — I mean to say —”

“We have an appointment with your father, Reginald,” Snape cut in, his voice cold.

The wizard deflated like a pricked balloon. “Ah—yes, sir. Of course, Professor Snape.” He scurried toward the back room, knocking a pile of scarves askew in his haste.

For one blessed moment, the shop’s chaos buzzed around them in relative peace. Then Reginald reappeared, tugging along an older wizard who moved with the quiet dignity of someone who had spent a lifetime ignoring nonsense. His salt-and-pepper hair was neatly tied back from his face, and a pair of pince-nez were perched on a long nose dusted with chalk.

‘Octavius,” Snape said with a short nod.

“Severus,” Octavius returned, inclining his own head with a faint smile. His voice was calm, unhurried, the complete opposite of his son’s babble. He waved his wand, and the chaos of the shop stilled. “My apologies — you made better time than I anticipated.”

As the two men stepped away a pace to confer in low murmurs, Reginald scurried back to Nella’s side, his grin reigniting now that Snape’s attention was elsewhere.

“You are her,” he whispered, practically bouncing on his heels.

“Nella Potter, our new celebrity.” 

Nella wanted nothing so much as to disappear into the gaudy purple carpet as he pressed closer. 

“Nella Potter! You survived You-Know-Who, didn’t you? Golly, what a scar! Does it ever hurt? It looks awful —“ 

Nella flinched back as Reginald actually reached for her face, and the panic that spiked through her chest burst outward before she could stop it. Three bolts of fabric shot from their shelves, exploding open in front of Nella with a sound like a whip crack. Reginald yelped and crashed backward into a rack of cloaks, while Nella stumbled the other way, her foot slamming down onto Snape’s.

His hiss of pain made her freeze, horrified.

Aunt Petunia’s lips twisted, and she raised her hand for another slap. “You little freak!”

Professor McGonagall’s warning rang cold and stern. “I want to hear of no further outbursts on your part.”

Snape’s hands closed hard on her shoulders. Nella flinched, but he only steered her firmly to stand on his other side, away from both Reginald and the fluttering fabric. 

“Enough.” The bolts of fabric rolled themselves tight at the sound of Octavius’s voice, darting back to their shelves as if embarrassed at having acted so rashly. “Miss Potter is a customer, Reggie, not some doll in a shop to be pawed over.”

Heat prickled across Nella’s neck and cheeks at the comparison, and she ducked her head, her chest aching.

Snape gave her shoulders a short, impatient shake. “Breathe, Potter.”

It was nothing like the way Hagrid had shielded her in the Leaky Cauldron — there was no warmth or softness in Snape’s hands — but she found herself grounded by the steadiness of his grip nonetheless. She sucked in a breath and counted to four before releasing it. She’d been panicking again.

“We do have a great many stops to make this evening, Octavius.”

The shopkeeper gestured toward the curtained doorway at the back of the shop. “Of course. This way, Severus, Miss Potter. If you please.”

Snape released her, and she fell into step beside him, though every instinct screamed against leaving the public section of the shop. She wouldn’t argue, though, or fight. She counted her breaths in time with Snape’s footsteps and vowed not to make things any worse. Whatever they decided to do with her, she’d get through.

The back room was lit by a crackling fire and dozens of floating candles. Paper patterns floated neatly in the air while bits of chalk marked out the measurements on pieces of fabric draped over the wide table below. Octavius waved his wand again, and the patterns rolled themselves up, the fabric wound itself into neat bolts, and the chalk nipped back into a glass jar on the mantelpiece. 

“My apologies,” Octavius said with a sigh as he closed the curtain behind them. Nella glanced up and was confused to see he was looking at her, not Snape. “Reggie’s enthusiasm is a boon when the school lets out for a Hogsmeade weekend, and half of Hogwarts descends upon us at once. But the rest of the time…” He shook his head, lips twitching toward something between fondness and exasperation. 

“It’s fine,” Nella croaked quickly, hardly daring to believe he wasn’t angry with her. 

“You are kind to say so,” Octavius said with a smile. “Now, Professor Snape said you are in need of a new uniform?”

Nella nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“A full first-year set, if you please, Octavius.”

“Of course. This way, my dear,” Octavius said warmly, ushering her toward a low, wooden stool. He reached to help her up, but his sharp eyes caught the bandages on her hands first. “Dear me. Whatever happened here?”

“A potions accident,” Snape said shortly. “As I noted in my letter this afternoon.”

Octavius nodded gravely, though his tone softened as he looked back to Nella and helped her up with a hand at her elbow instead. “A very tough lesson for your first day, but I do hope you have learned caution, Miss Potter. Hands are precious things. Treat them with care.”

Nella bobbed her head, her throat tight. He held out his hands in a silent offer to help ease her out of her borrowed robes, and she accepted gratefully. Wrestling them on that morning had been miserable. As her threadbare muggle clothes were revealed, Octavius’s eyebrows rose despite his best manners. He made no comment, however, merely flicked his wand so a quill and parchment zipped to readiness.

Snape, however, was not so restrained. His eyes raked her outfit with unmasked disgust. “What in Merlin’s name are you wearing, Potter?”

Nella flushed scarlet. She scrambled desperately for an excuse that wouldn’t make Snape angrier, and she settled on the one he’d already offered the tailor. “The—the potions accident, sir — everything was ruined. I had to borrow—”

Snape cut her off with a sharp gesture. “Might I trouble you for use of your Floo, Octavius?”

“Of course, Severus.”

Snape stalked to the fireplace. He threw a handful of dust from another jar on the mantelpiece into the flames, which flared emerald green. Her heart lurched into her throat as he dropped to one knee and thrust his head into the fire. She bit down on a squeak. His head was gone. Just gone.

Octavius, unfazed, began measuring her shoulders with a floating tape, his quill scratching notes onto the parchment. “Hold very still, Miss Potter. Arms at your sides. Good.”

Nella tried to stand still, but she kept darting glances toward the fire, where Snape’s body knelt like a grotesque statue, his head swallowed by the flames. By the time Snape withdrew, brushing soot and chalk dust from his knees with short, irritated motions, Octavius had finished his measurements. A final wave of his wand, and the quill scribbled one last note before setting itself down. “I’ll have Reggie deliver everything to the school before the evening meal, Severus,” Octavius said smoothly.

Snape inclined his head curtly. Octavius vanished through the curtain, calling for his son, and the instant the curtain swung shut, Snape rounded on Nella.

He plucked at the sleeve of her sweatshirt with the same look of disgust he’d used when inspecting her ruined socks back in the dormitory. “You look like a delinquent street urchin! Why did you not think to mention this earlier? If you thought to embarrass me in front of —”

The simmering panic in Nella’s chest evaporated in a flash of hot anger. 

“Everything else is gone!” she snarled, low and furious.

The words hung in the air, but Nella refused to take them back. She shoved her hands into her pockets so she wouldn’t be tempted to try and defend herself if he decided to hit her, but she would not take the words back. Her clothes were three days old at this point, on top of being awful, but she’d saved her wand with the sweatshirt, so she refused to be ashamed of it. She would not let him scold her for wearing the only things she had left. Her eyes stung, but she refused to cry.

Snape said nothing, and Nella’s courage began to fray. She almost wished he’d just hit her and be done with it. At least then, she’d know where the line was. Instead, she felt like she was winding a Jack-in-the-Box tighter with every misstep, and she had no idea what might come springing out of it, or when. 

But Snape didn’t hit her.

He just stared.

“Five points for your tone, Potter,” he said at last, his voice clipped. “I warned you as much earlier. However, I had not considered that you would need more than school supplies. You have my apologies.”

It was Nella’s turn to stare. She couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly.

“I have just spoken with the Headmaster. We will be going into London to pick up some necessities for you, and then we will complete our shopping in Diagon Alley.”

“Yes, sir.”

Her answer should have been safe, but Snape was suddenly pointing his wand at her, and Nella’s heart lurched. She’d forgotten about jinxes. He could do anything —

“Scourgify.”

The stains vanished from her shirt and jeans.

“Have you traveled by Floo before, Potter?” Snape asked as he strode across the room, seemingly oblivious to the heart attack he’d nearly given her.

“N-no, sir,” she choked out.

“I suspected as much,” he sighed. His tone shifted into the precise cadence of a lecture, and Nella wondered if he was forcing himself to be calm and empty like she was. The thought was not a comforting one. She knew that trick: Uncle Vernon could stay calm long enough to get out of polite company, but that calm always broke into shouting — or worse — once the doors were shut.

“The Floo Network is a magical method of travel that uses fireplaces to transport witches and wizards from one magical building to another. You will take a pinch of Floo powder, throw it into the fire, and when the flames turn green, step into them. State your destination very clearly, then close your eyes and mouth as you are swept into the network. Keep your body as compact and controlled as possible until you feel yourself slowing. At that point, simply step forward, and you will emerge at your destination. Any questions?”

“No, sir,” Nella said at once. She had dozens, but she wasn’t walking into Aunt Petunia’s favorite trap. 

Snape’s eyebrow arched, as though he knew she was lying and fully expected disaster. Still, he held out the jar of glittering powder he'd used earlier. “After you, then, Potter. Your destination is The Leaky Cauldron.” 

Anger flared up her spine again at the mocking lilt in his voice, but she made herself bite it back.

She pinched the dust, flung it into the flames, and stepped forward without a backward glance.

Chapter Text

The common room was surprisingly quiet. Hermione knew some of the older students were still attending their last classes of the day, but compared to the bustling hive of activity she'd seen the night before, the common room was practically dead at the moment. It was reassuring — she’d been afraid she’d never get any studying done up here in all that chaos.

Percy had comandeered a table in the corner nearest the girls' dormitories for his study group. He had a roll of parchment spread in front of him and was silently ticking off the last few first years as they settled into the squashy red armchairs he’d dragged close for them. Marigold Gibson, the other fifth year prefect, was perched primly on the arm of Percy's chair with a copy of Magical Theory already open to the first chapter.

Hermione had read the whole thing cover to cover, of course, and her notes from class were already quite thorough, but she supposed she didn’t mind practicing the basics if it helped the others catch up. Neville, in particular, seemed to have been struggling in class today, though she was sure it was more nerves than anything. The same went for Nella — she couldn’t imagine trying to focus with everyone staring at her all day long.

As if reading her thoughts, Parvati leaned across the table, her dark braid slipping over her shoulder. “Has anyone seen Nella?” she asked. “She seemed a little upset this afternoon.”

Hermione opened her mouth, but Percy cut in without even looking up from his roll of parchment. “Miss Potter has an appointment with Professor Snape this afternoon. She is excused from the beginning of our review and will return later.”

Seamus dropped his textbook with a clatter. “With Snape? Has that got something to do with all those points we lost today?”

Before Percy could answer, Fred loomed suddenly from behind Seamus’s chair, grinning. “If that was Nella, then we owe her one.”

George settled contentedly onto the arm of Hermione's chair, knocking her textbook into her lap as he finished the thought. “With zero points, we can’t possibly go any lower—”

“—so why not make the most of it?” Fred finished, exchanging a mischievous look with his twin. “We reckon it's the perfect time to leave a little gift for the Slytherins —”

“You two will do no such thing,” Percy said sharply, jabbing his quill like a sword in their direction. “House points are not the only consequence for misbehavior, as you well know!”

“Detention is hardly worth a joke,” Marigold added.

Lee Jordan laughed from a nearby armchair. “Depends on the joke.” The twins chuckled and drifted back to join him around their own table.

Percy eyed them apprehensively, but then clapped his hands. “Now, tonight, we are reviewing the principles of wand —“

“But what about the points?” Seamus interrupted hotly. “One of the fourth years told me they’re still going down this afternoon! And if we’ve really got zero… What’s Snape doing with Nella if he hates her so much? She didn’t even do anything! Can’t he just leave her be?”

“Professor Snape is a Hogwarts teacher,” Percy sniffed. “He doesn’t hate anyone.”

“But Perce,” Ron cut in, bristling in his seat, “you weren’t in class today. He seems to really have it in for Nella —“

A derisive snort cut across him. Draco had sprawled in his chair with calculated laziness, but his grey eyes glittered with cruel amusement. “It’s not like he’s going to eat her, weasel-brain.”

“There’s other things he can do,” Ron snapped.

“Oh, yeah? Like what?”

Neville surprised everyone by speaking up then. “I h-heard from one of the o-older students… He s-said P-Professor Snape’s a v-vampire.”

Nervous giggles rippled around the table, but Percy cleared his throat and shook out his parchment. “Enough. We are not here to gossip about professors. We are here to —“

Lavender leaned forward, her eyes wide and earnest. “But I heard that, too! And the way he was so mean to Nella in class today —“

“He’s not a vampire!” Draco snapped, looking more irritated than amused now.

“And what would you know about it, Malfoy?” Ron shot back. “It’s not like you’re in Slytherin, is it?”

Draco rolled his eyes with theatrical disdain. “He’s my godfather, that’s what. Not that it’s any of your business.”

A beat of silence followed this pronouncement, even Percy seeming to be at a loss as to what to say.

“You’re having us on,” Ron said finally.

“Believe what you want, weasel-brain. I couldn’t care less. But he’s not a vampire.”

“Of course he’s not,” Hermione said crisply, eager to bring the argument to a definitive end before it came to blows. “For one thing, he was in the Great Hall this morning with sunlight streaming in through the windows. For another, garlic is a common potion ingredient, and it’s in the potion to cure boils, which we are set to brew on Thursday. He’d hardly assign a potion with —“

Percy clapped his hands so loudly she jumped. “And the topic this evening is wand handling!”

Seamus and Dean snickered.

Percy glared.

“Wands out, everyone,” Marigold commanded briskly. “On your feet.”

They obeyed, and Percy began pacing around them like a drill sergeant, correcting their stance. “Shoulder-width apart, Ronald, not wider. Lavender, that’s a drumstick the way you’re gripping it!”

Marigold, meanwhile, held court from her perch on the arm of Percy’s chair. “Elbow soft,” she called to Dean, who had his arm out stiff in front of him. “Wrist relaxed, with just the thumb resting on top to guide it. You’ll break the wand or put out someone’s eye gripping it like that.”

Hermione followed along absently. She’d practiced the correct stance and grip in front of a mirror at home until her wrist ached, and there wasn’t much more for her to do tonight. Still, it struck her that Nella was the one who really needed this — needed to see that everyone was struggling in one way or another. Seamus’s cheeks and Ron’s ears were turning pinker and pinker every time Percy barked an order, and Neville dropped his wand twice and shot off a shower of blue sparks before he struck the proper balance between tightness and softness in his grip. Even smug, superior Draco had been snapped at more than once.

“None of that showing off, Draco,” Percy said sharply. Hermione turned and caught the tail end of a flourishing twirl. “A wand is not a toy.”

Draco smirked lazily but complied, holding his wand in a picture-perfect grip. The look on his face reminded her of his strange warning at breakfast.

“I don’t need a warning about Snape. I’ll be just fine in potions.” Then that same lazy smirk. “I promise, Potter. You’d do better to worry about yourself.”

He’d known, somehow, that Snape would pick on Nella.

After what felt like ages, Marigold glanced at the clock over the mantel and announced, “That’s enough for tonight, I think.”

Percy checked the time as well. “I agree. Dinner’s in ten minutes — off you go. Good work tonight!”

Chairs scraped and voices rose as the first years gathered their books and hurried up to their dormitories to put them away.

“I really would have thought she’d be back by now,” Hermione said worriedly, as Ron and Neville rejoined her at their table in the common room. “And she would’ve liked seeing everyone practice. It might have helped her nerves.”

“She’ll probably just meet us down at dinner,” Ron argued. “I mean, no point in hiking all the way up here, just to go right back down again, right?”

Hermione nodded, but as they climbed through the portrait hole and headed down to dinner, Hermione noted she wasn’t the only one who appeared anxious.

Chapter Text

Nella’s stomach lurched as the world blurred into roaring heat and flickering shadows. Faster and faster she spun. Panic clawed up her throat. Was she slowing yet? Had she missed the Leaky Cauldron? 

Then, suddenly, the spinning slowed. Voices swelled near her ears. She lurched forward, then overbalanced spectacularly at the sudden change in momentum. She crashed hard onto a flagstone floor, and her knee and hands screamed with the impact, though Nella herself remained silent.

“Oh! Easy there, miss,” said a familiar voice. There was a scuffle of feet near her face, and then a hand grasped her arm and hauled her upright. “Miss Potter! Welcome back!”

She was relieved to see the toothless grin of Tom, the owner of the Leaky Cauldron.

“First time through the Floo then?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” she coughed, wincing as her ribs pinched.

“It’s always a bit rough at first. You’ll get the hang of it. Don’t worry!” With a flick of his wand and a cheerful “Scourgify,” the soot vanished from her clothes and skin.

The flames behind her roared green again, and Snape stepped smoothly out of the grate. He looked every bit as filthy as Nella had, but with a wave of his wand, he was immaculate once more.

“Ah! Professor Snape, sir!” Tom said warmly. “Pleasure to see you. On an errand for the school, I suppose?”

“Yes,” Snape said shortly. His eyes flicked toward Nella. “Well, Potter? All in one piece?”

“Yes, sir,” she declared, lifting her chin. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of hearing her whine about her scraped knee. But as soon as they were clear of Tom’s gaze, Snape rounded on her and dropped into a crouch between two tables, plucking at the bloody tear in her jeans.

“Damn it all, Potter,” he snarled. “Your pride is going to get me arrested.”

“It’s just a scrape,” Nella protested. She tried to step back, but his grip on the fabric froze her instantly.

“And you’re just the Girl Who Lived,” he bit out. He lowered his voice further. “Being Head of Slytherin House comes with a certain… reputation. You’re already dressed like a vagrant. Add blood and that petulant look on your face, and half the wizards in London will think I’ve kidnapped you.”

“I — oh.”

She understood that one. She wasn’t supposed to bother decent people with such things. Attention only caused more trouble. She only ever made things worse. She still had no idea what was coming in her detentions. And if he could heal her after, then what couldn’t he do to her in the meantime?

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t think —“

“Of course you didn’t.” His wand snapped up, and she flinched. “Episkey. Scourgify.” The sting in her knee melted away. “Where else are you hurt?”

Once more, she felt the hideous temptation to tell him about her ribs. He was so confusing — so angry, but still making her feel better. She couldn’t understand what it was he wanted from her.

She shook her head.

“Potter…” His tone was a warning, as if he knew she was lying, though she couldn’t imagine how.

His earlier words about his lack of patience rang in her ears. She already had six detentions with him. More would be worse. She had to be brave enough to keep from making it worse. “My hands are sore,” she mumbled. “I fell coming out of the fireplace.”

He took her hands without a word, unwinding the bandages he’d conjured earlier. He tutted quietly at the sight of a few newly burst blisters across her palms. Drawing out his little dropper bottle, he dripped the oil directly into each of the worst spots and conjured fresh bandages.

He vanished the old bandages and raised an eyebrow. “Where else?”

Nella froze.

He marked it in an instant. “Potter —“

 She had to say something. She shouldn’t have hesitated, but she hadn’t expected him to notice. No one ever paid her this much attention. It wasn’t fair.

“I-I knocked into something,” she blurted, ducking her head as though he had won. As though she were merely embarrassed, not terrified out of her wits. It was a perfectly true statement, though it was not at all related to his question. Nella had all but perfected this tactic to avoid lying outright. She was safer if she only had to remember true things.

And if he could stop her ribs pinching her so badly…

“Where?”

“My side.”

“Left or right?”

“L-left.”

He reached for her before she could even think to step away, but he only lifted her arm slightly so he could feel along her side.

He was so careful that for a moment she forgot how to breathe.

No one was ever this careful.

Still, she flinched away involuntarily as his fingers found the tender line along her ribs where she’d hit the desk back on Privet Drive. “S-sorry,” she gasped out.

He huffed in irritation and released her arm. “Only you could crack a rib doing something as simple as stepping through the Floo,” he muttered. “Episkey.”

The pain vanished so suddenly and so completely that it startled her. The relief was almost dizzying, and her eyes stung suddenly — as if she had a single thing to cry about now he had undone every lingering hurt from Privet Drive.

By the time she blinked the tears away, Snape was standing again, his black robes replaced by a dark sweater and jeans.

 “Come on, then, Potter,” he said, adjusting his sleeve to lay smoothly over his wand in its holster. “Let’s get this over with.”

***

On the busy muggle street outside the Leaky Cauldron, it was raining.

Snape tied back his black hair and popped up an umbrella that Nella would have sworn hadn’t been there a moment earlier. He held it up with a raised eyebrow, and Nella fell into step beside him.

Even in the pouring rain, London was crowded, and Nella was pathetically grateful for the excuse of the umbrella’s shelter to stay close to Snape. The crowds parted easily enough for him, even without his billowing black robes, but Nella shuddered to think of what would happen if they got separated.

A few blocks away, they reached their destination, and she ducked meekly into the muggle clothing shop when Snape held the door open for her. He moved at once to a rack of blue jeans near the front window.

“What size do you wear, Potter?”

Nella shrugged, staring at the dizzying array of cuts and colors — and that was just the jeans. The store was enormous.

“Do not be difficult,” Snape snarled lowly, so as not to draw unwanted attention. “It is a simple question.”

Nella shook her head, her cheeks heating.

“Use your words, Potter.”

Nella tried to speak, but all she could manage was a hoarse whisper past the panicked embarrassment clogging her throat. “I-I don’t know, sir. M-my aunt —“

Snape rolled his eyes. “I should have known. Are you telling me you are so spoiled you have never once noticed the numbers on the tags on your clothing? Come here.”

Nella’s cheeks were on fire. Aunt Petunia had brought home new packages of underthings for her once in a while, but every other thing she owned had come from Dudley. She shuffled nervously closer, determined not to cry as he spun her around and held up a pair of jeans from the rack to measure around her hips.

“Do you have anything on under this circus tent?” he asked impatiently after a minute of wrestling with the miles of fabric that made up her sweatshirt.

“Y-yes, sir. Sorry.” She yanked the sweatshirt hastily over her head, ignoring the way the action made her bandaged fingers sting. It was more important to keep him happy, to convince him she really was trying to be good.

She could feel the disdain rolling off him in waves as he took in the holes and stains in the t-shirt underneath, and she willed herself to go small and calm and quiet. Empty. Feelings never helped. She’d get through, and maybe even get an outfit or two that fit her properly out of this mess. It didn’t matter what Snape thought of her. Not really. And she hated Dudley’s old clothes anyway. There was no use crying over them.

“Can I help you?”

Nella jumped and whipped around to see a young woman with streaky blonde hair standing behind the clothing rack. She was smiling, but her eyes were raking over Nella’s awful clothes and bandaged hands and scarred face the way the neighbors’ had always done back on Privet Drive. She could practically hear the woman’s thoughts.

Delinquent.

Freak.

“Thank heavens,” Snape said, shoulders sagging and a bizarre half-smile twisting his lips. Nella fought back a flinch as he tugged her in against his side with an arm around her shoulders. He made a show of peering at the woman’s plastic name tag, then put out a hand for her to shake. “Denise, is it? I’m Sev, and this is my niece, Nella. We’ve come for a bit of everything today, I’m afraid.”

“Everything?” Denise asked, eyebrows climbing.

Snape nodded and lowered his voice with a wince. “I daresay you heard about that house fire in Cobham the other night?”

The woman nodded eagerly, though Nella was willing to bet there had been no such fire.

“I told her mother — my sister — I’d take Nella for a few days so she and her husband can get matters sorted with the insurance company.”

Snape’s thumb rubbed almost absently against Nella’s shoulder as he spoke. It reminded her of Hermione hugging her on the train, and she found her eyes suddenly prickling with tears again, though she couldn’t have explained why. She hadn’t been in a house fire, and Professor Snape wasn’t hugging her. Not really.

“Oh, you poor dear,” Denise breathed, taking in Nella’s appearance once more, eyes shining with sympathy this time, rather than disgust. Anger prickled up the back of Nella’s neck, but she forced it away, breathing in time with Snape’s stroking thumb. Sympathy was better than disgust. Sympathy rarely made people angry.

“I thought we could pick up a few outfits and some necessities today," Snape continued. "I’d hoped to take a few cares off their list — they lost everything, of course — but I’m afraid I forgot to ask about sizes and, well, everything else."

He gave Nella's shoulder a squeeze, as if in apology.

"I hate to bother Lily just now, with everything she’s got going on, but we really haven’t the faintest idea how to start…”

The woman looked as though Christmas had come early. She took Nella by the shoulders and began steering her toward a fitting room. “Come with me, honey. Don’t you worry. I’ve got you!”

Alone in the tiny room, Nella sat on the metal chair and tried to get her emotions under control. Snape's cover story had surprised her, but she supposed it made sense. He couldn't very well tell a muggle about her potions kit. They had to appear normal. She was good at pretending to be normal. She could do this. She just had to stay calm.

With Denise's help, Nella discovered her pants size, and Snape directed her to choose three pairs of jeans in varying shades of blue, along with a nice black belt to replace the old, cut-off one of Uncle Vernon’s she usually wore.

While Denise fretted over how skinny she was, Snape bemoaned her picky eating and blamed her father’s cooking with a very convincing look of disgust. “Honestly, I don’t know why Lily ever lets James in the kitchen.”

Nella’s stomach gave a strange, fluttery lurch. No one ever spoke her parents’ names — Nella hadn’t even known them before meeting Hagrid — but Snape tossed them around as if they were old and familiar…

For a heartbeat, a dozen questions burned at the back of her throat, but she swallowed them back as Denise swooped in with an an alarmingly tall stack of t-shirts.

“Now for the fun part, love! What's your favorite color?"

Nella had no earthly idea. It had never mattered before.

Again, Snape was ready with an answer to rescue her. "Her school colors are red and gold. Aren't they, Nella? Perhaps we should start there."

Nella nodded eagerly. She chose one t-shirt each in red, black, grey, and a warm dandelion color that she felt was less flashy than the brighter gold Denise found for her.

When she stepped out of the fitting room with the yellow shirt on, Snape laughed out loud. "You look like a weed, Bug."

Nella froze, unsure what she was meant to do with such a comment. There was no heat in it, but she sifted through the words anyway, testing them for hidden edges. Was the shirt a problem? The color? Her, for thinking she needed four? And what about “Bug?” It certainly didn’t sound like a good thing…

“Don’t you listen to a word he says, love,” Denise scolded, shooing her back into the fitting room with several packets of underthings and a muttered, “Boys.”

While Nella dealt with the underthings and tried to puzzle out whether he’d meant anything in particular by calling her “Bug,” she heard both Snape and Denise move off for a few minutes. When she emerged, it was to find that Snape himself had found her a light jacket of quilted black material that she could layer with a sweatshirt as the weather turned colder, and he and Denise had brought her an assortment of pajamas with a truly wild range of colors and patterns.

“No accounting for taste,” he groused as she tried them on. “You watch — she’ll pick the most obnoxious sets she can find.” Denise’s laughter rang out over the tinny music being piped through the store speakers, and Nella realized he was teasing her. Snape was joking, and Denise thought it was cute.

Feeling oddly lighter and noting his use of the plural, Nella picked two sets of pajamas. The first was a pretty one that was midnight blue and speckled with tiny, white stars. The second was a deep purple with a pattern of multicolored, cartoon owls.

“Told you so,” Snape muttered smugly when she came out with her choices in hand, and Nella’s chest swelled with pride at having figured out the right thing to do.

The final item Denise brought Nella to try was a mossy green sweatshirt with wide bands of darker and lighter green on the arms. “It’s from the boys’ section, honey, but that doesn’t matter so much with sweatshirts, really. Just try it. Trust me.”

Nella obeyed, of course. She didn’t care that it came from the boys’ department. It had neither stains nor holes in it, and it looked gloriously warm and cozy. It was the softest thing she’d ever worn, and it was absolutely beautiful.

When she stepped out of the fitting room for the adults’ critique with a wide grin on her face, the clerk squealed and clapped her hands, but Snape looked pale and upset.

“I-I could try a different color?” Nella offered, wilting slightly.

Snape shook his head and cleared his throat. “No. I apologize. Green is fine. I-it suits you. For a moment, you looked like your — ” He stood straighter and cleared his throat again. “I — excuse me a moment, please. P-perhaps you can look at shoes next?”

The clerk steered Nella back toward the fitting room to change back into her own clothes as Snape disappeared between the clothing racks. “It’s alright, honey. Sometimes men are a little slow to process things, that’s all. I’ll bet it’s just hitting him now how close he was to losing you all.” She brushed a finger over Nella’s bandaged hand in sympathy. “That fire was a bad one.”

Nella nodded, but her heart sank. The clerk’s words were kind, but there wasn’t any truth behind them. There hadn’t been any fire. There was no reason for Professor Snape to be upset over fake-losing Nella’s fake family in a fake fire. Sure, she’d gotten a bit caught up in the cozy fantasy herself, but it had been his idea. He was probably embarrassed that she’d gotten so excited over a stupid sweatshirt, of all things. Or else he was angry with her again and had stepped out so the clerk wouldn’t notice. She’d be in for it later, she was sure.

Anxiety and disappointment knotted in her stomach as she looked down at the sweatshirt. It was beautiful.

It was beautiful, and she loved it, so of course she wasn't meant to have it.

She knew better.

And clothes that fit were luxury enough. She didn’t need them to be soft and beautiful and perfect, too.

Nella sighed and folded the sweater neatly on the seat in the fitting room and went back out to see the clerk.

Chapter Text

Sixty more seconds.

Snape would allow himself sixty more seconds in the alley behind the shop. Then he would return to the insipid music and the smiling clerk and those miraculous, horrible, unbearable eyes.

It was obvious now what Petunia had meant, dressing the girl in rags for her first day of school. Anything to stop her looking like her mother. Bad enough the girl had Lily’s eyes and her smile — adding in her magic had been intolerable.

He let the scene spool out in his mind’s eye: Petunia and her undoubtedly odious husband, sitting with Potter around the breakfast table, talking about nothing. In his imaginings, Petunia was over-styled and floral-printed and infuriatingly perfect, and the husband was one of those awful, empty-headed muggle yuppies with a too-tight tie and his face buried behind the newspaper.

Then the letter, inked in emerald green, whizzing down the kitchen chimney, perhaps. Skidding to a halt beside Potter’s plate. Potter breaking the seal and reading aloud:

Dear Miss Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Petunia’s startled bemusement curdling into betrayed fury over hours or days, transforming her features like a veela’s, until she snapped — wielding potions ingredients instead of fireballs as her tools of destruction.

Later, some shame.

A reconciliation, perhaps — one version of Potter’s story had her relatives advising her to seek help with the destruction in her trunk, after all.

Petunia harboring a secret hope that the girl would stay home in the end, would refuse her birthright and honor the woman who had raised her.

Then, the final straw: having to drive Potter to the school train herself. Of course she would seek to deny the child her golden debut, and present the wizarding world she hated with a ragged street urchin, instead of their beloved patron saint.

Snape pressed his fingers into the damp bricks at his back. He’d told the headmaster he was wasting his time trying to make him feel sympathy for Petunia.

Not sympathy, perspective, echoed the Headmaster’s damnably serene voice in his head.

And all it had taken was one look from the child — bounding out of the fitting room with those awful eyes looking so like her mother’s — and he understood it. He’d never excuse such dangerously childish behavior, but damn it all, he understood the poisonous temptation of it.

His sixty seconds were up.

He made himself step away from the wall and shrug back into the borrowed ease of “Uncle Sev.” Potter had been remarkably good at upholding his improvised cover story so far, but he didn’t dare leave her unattended too long, or else he risked having to guess at and uphold all manner of ridiculous embellishments.

When he stepped back through the shop door, the bell jangled too brightly, the tinny music too loud, and he was once again assaulted by the sharp fluorescence of the overhead lights. How muggles tolerated such things on a daily basis was beyond comprehension.

Potter and the clerk — Denise, he reminded himself, because Uncle Sev would make a point of noticing and remembering — were working together to fold tissue around rejected pairs of shoes and return them to the appropriate boxes on the counter.

He crossed the floor with an apologetic smile that was not his own and settled an arm around Potter’s shoulders as if it belonged there. She stiffened for only a moment this time before leaning slightly into his side, as if she belonged there, too. “Sorry about that, Bug.”

Potter didn’t answer, but Denise smiled sympathetically, laying her hand over the girl’s. “No apology necessary, love,” she said warmly to Snape. “It’s overwhelming just now for both of you, but it’ll get better.”

He flinched, then cursed himself as he felt Potter tense, too, clearly confused. He reminded himself that the clerk had no idea what she was talking about. Just empty condolences over an imagined fire. He smiled weakly. He brushed a thumb over Potter’s shoulder as though seeking to reassure her, too. “Still…” He glanced around at the heap of boxes on the counter and cleared his throat, leaning into Uncle Sev’s affable helplessness. “How’d we do on shoes?”

Potter pulled a sensible pair of black sneakers from the pile of clothing they’d already selected. “Are these alright?”

Snape nodded. “Good choice.” Then, with a sudden, vicious impulse to make good old Tuney pay just the tiniest bit more, he asked, “What about a second set?”

Potter’s eyes flicked up, just for a moment, clearly surprised. “A-are you sure, si-Sev?”

“Of course. Only sensible to have a spare. The way it’s coming down out there, these’ll be soaked through by the time we’ve finished our errands. How about the red?”

Denise was delighted. “Perfect! They’ll match your new shirt!”

Potter nodded faintly, not looking at either of them, and Snape frowned. Something had clearly happened while he was outside. “What’s the matter, Bug?” he asked, masking his worry and irritation beneath Uncle Sev’s concern. “It doesn’t have to be the red pair.”

“N-no! I like the red,” Potter hastened to assure them. She broke out a smile that only seemed the slightest bit forced, and then only because he was watching for it. Denise appeared reassured.

“Where’s the sweatshirt?” he asked, suddenly realizing that the counter was distinctly lacking in green.

He felt her breath hitch beneath his hand. “I-I thought I’d better not.”

She folded the next piece of tissue for Denise with unnecessary care, prompting the woman to resume her packing. The clerk was easily distracted, but Snape blinked, momentarily at a loss. There was no sullenness in Potter’s tone, no trace of calculation or artifice — only something like embarrassment, and then the attempt at distraction…

Perspective, Dumbledore had said.

It dawned on him then that he was what had happened to upset her. He hadn’t considered what she must have thought when he’d all but fled at the sight of her.

“I-I could try a different color?” she’d said as he'd faltered, as if his opinion mattered one jot.

She wanted his approval.

Choosing the riotously colorful pajamas he’d joked about, letting him touch her, accepting that absurd nickname without comment… All of it was an effort to impress him — appease him — just like the abysmal notes that morning, written with those mangled hands.

And she’d come out of that fitting room wearing the first genuine smile he had seen from her, on what was probably one of the worst days of her pampered, perfect life.

His retreat must have felt like a slap in the face, ranking him down with Petunia and her sabotage.

“Go and get the sweatshirt, Nella.”

She twitched at his use of her given name, looking up with a wariness that made his chest ache strangely. “Truly?”

He nodded resolutely. She had her mother’s eyes no matter what she was wearing. She may as well have something she so clearly loved. And no one could accuse him of spoiling her over something as practical as a sweatshirt for a child who lived in a notoriously drafty castle.

Denise glanced between them. “If your uncle’s alright with it, honey, why don’t you go ahead and get changed altogether? I only need the tags.”

Snape nodded gratefully. “That’d be great, Denise. Could she have a bag for the loaners?”

“Of course, love.”

Potter accepted the empty shopping bag and hastened to assemble an outfit from the nearest items before slipping into the fitting room with her prizes.

Denise began tapping items into the register. “You and Lily must be close.”

For an instant, he forgot how to breathe. The casually dropped name landed in his chest like a lead weight.

He managed a tight nod.

“She’s lucky to have you,” Denise added warmly.

Snape wasn’t sure whether she was speaking of Lily or Nella, but either way, the notion was absurd. He reminded himself once again that the woman was only speaking to “Uncle Sev,” and he forced himself to smile.

Potter was mercifully efficient, in spite of her bandaged hands. She emerged from the fitting room only a minute or two later, the shopping bag with her old clothes dangling from one elbow.

Snape stifled a laugh at the sight of her. Red sneakers, blue jeans, and layers of yellow and green peeking out beneath the black jacket. House Unity incarnate. Dumbledore would be intolerable.

Denise rang up the last items, sneaking in a few questionable coupons, and he paid with a Gringotts-backed check.

“Wait a second, sweetheart,” Denise said as they turned to go. She stepped around the counter and slipped a small packet of star-shaped hairclips into the girl’s jacket pocket. “My treat, alright? You hang in there — things’ll start looking up.”

Outside, the steady rain had graduated into a full-fledged downpour. Snape discreetly expanded the umbrella to better shelter them and all their shopping bags. “I will shrink your things once we reach the Leaky Cauldron,” he said.

Potter nodded. “Thank you, sir."

Snape hummed an acknowledgment. Then, as they waited to cross the street, he said, “I apologize for touching you so familiarly, Potter."

The child stared at him as though he'd begun speaking Mermish.

He resisted the urge to scowl. "And for the nickname. It was the first thing that came to mind. Once established, I could hardly retract it.”

“It’s fine, sir,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mind. I’ve been called worse—“ Her mouth snapped shut, too late.

Snape quirked an eyebrow. “’Idiot child,’ for instance?” he asked dryly.

Silence.

He sighed. "What I mean to say is that you kept your composure remarkably well in there, Potter, in spite of my improvisation. You may take five points for Gryffindor for your levelheadedness."

"I--" She blinked, then straightened slightly. He hadn't realized just how hunched her shoulders had been. "Thank you, sir."

He inclined his head and gestured for her to cross the street as it finally cleared.

Perspective, Dumbledore had said. Damn him. 

Chapter Text

By the time they reached Slug & Jigger’s, the worst of the day’s shopping was behind them. The shopping bag dangling from Potter’s elbow bulged with shrunken parcels, clinking occasionally as she stumbled over uneven cobblestones. She was getting tired — not that Snape could blame her.

Shopping with Potter had been… taxing.

Once he’d finally noticed it, he couldn’t stop seeing how anxious she was to keep him appeased. And her tells were too subtle to be performance: the quick flinch or stifled gasp whenever he spoke; the bitten lip before each answer; the precise distance she kept beside him under the umbrella; the deferential “sir” tacked onto every single sentence; and the muttered apologies for every misstep, real or imagined.

Her caginess had his hackles up as well, and the situation was not helped in the slightest by all the fawning of the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley. The usual cool distance he commanded when he was out in public vanished before their eagerness to impress the Girl Who Lived.

And the rumors that would no doubt be circulating by morning…  Nella Potter seen with the Head of Slytherin House. He saw how that was received in every uneasy smile, every double-edged pleasantry tossed before him like scraps before a stray dog. How dare he or his house lay any claim to precious Nella Potter? His irritation only fueled her discomfort in a miserable loop, like one of Sibyl’s infuriating self-fulfilling prophecies.

He'd brought it on himself, of course. His panicked reaction that morning, then jinxing her still that afternoon... He'd terrified her, and she had spent the evening waiting for the inevitable return of his temper. He ought to have taken Dumbledore’s offer to have Minerva handle this, but he’d let his stubborn pride get in the way. He’d expected a spoiled, petulant brat in need of a firm hand, but when he opened the door of the apothecary for her, she darted inside like a mouse.

“Touch nothing, Potter,” he murmured as he shook water off the umbrella through the doorway. Again, she flinched, disguising the motion as a hasty adjustment to the shrunken books in her sweatshirt pocket, as though she’d had her hands tucked away there the whole time.

He ground his teeth as he realized she’d likely taken his simple caution as a scolding.

“Do you recall this morning’s lesson, Potter?”

“Yes, sir,” she said — too quickly.

Snape bit back a sigh and forced his voice once more into something cooler and flatter, as if he were merely delivering a lecture in class. That tone, though wearisome, had gotten the most reasonable reactions out of her today by far. “Mr. Jigger is not known for the cleanliness of his shop, Potter. Given what he sells and what I told you in class this morning, can you tell me why I would ask you to refrain from touching any of the surfaces in here?”

She looked terrified but thoughtful. “B-because of the oil you put on my hands, sir?” she offered slowly.

He nodded. “Essence of dittany. Go on.”

“I-if it soaked th-through the bandages…”

Snape gave her another nod. She was nearly there.

Her eyes flew to his in horror as it suddenly clicked. “B-but, sir — shouldn’t he know to keep it — I mean —“

“Mr. Jigger should indeed know to keep his shop clean and free of contaminants, Potter,” Snape cut in lowly, before she could either shy away from this minor triumph or draw the attention of  the shopkeeper in question.

“People could get hurt!” she hissed, her hands clenching in her pocket.

“They could, indeed. Five points to Gryffindor.”

“But — thank you, sir — but then why would anyone come in h—“ Her mouth snapped shut, and Snape’s mouth twisted as he guessed her question.

“Politics, Potter,” he explained briefly. “Mr. Jigger’s uncle is on the Hogwarts Board of Governors.”

“And you’re a Hogwarts teacher,” she breathed, catching on far faster than he would have expected.

“Indeed — and you are the Girl Who Lived. The imagined slight if we went elsewhere would be intolerable.”

“I understand, sir.”

He gave her a curt nod and strode toward the counter, breathing shallowly against the sweet stink of feverfew and slowly-rotting eel’s eyes that permeated Jigger’s establishment.

Jigger looked up as they approached and pasted on his usual oily smile. “Professor Snape, sir! Welcome! And the lovely Miss Potter— back again so soon? Been brewing already, have you?”

“There was an accident,” Snape said coldly. “Miss Potter will require a replacement of her full first-year kit.”

Jigger paled. “Oh — oh dear. I do hope — It wasn’t anything to do with — well, of course not m-my product —”

“The mold on the lovage in the window does not inspire great confidence.”

Jigger sputtered about weather and supply lines. Snape ignored him and merely waited, eyebrow raised.

The shopkeeper produced a box of parchment packets. Snape reached in without hesitation, tore open the one labeled lovage, dampened a fingertip with his tongue, and touched it to the sample.

The barest taste, and he spat it onto the floor.

“Mold.”

He snatched the next packet and sniffed carefully. The usual spicy note from the powdered lionfish spine was almost nonexistent. “Already abysmally stale. This will not last the term.”

He moved on to the fanged geranium blooms. “Picked out of season, but passable for first year brewing. Barely,” he said, already reaching for the next packet.

Powdered billywig stings. The usual pearly-blue dust was dull and whitish. “Did you powder the entire billywig, Jigger?” he asked, voice low and venomous. “If you wish to continue enjoying Hogwarts’ patronage—”

“My uncle—”

Snape stepped in, quiet as a drawn blade. “Your uncle,” he hissed, “will not be on the Board of Governors forever. Your laziness is going to get one of my students killed. And if he truly wishes to defend that, then I fear his tenure will be shorter yet.”

Jigger’s face drained of all color.

“Now, Mr. Jigger, have you anything suitable for proper brewing in this shop, or shall Miss Potter and I take our business elsewhere this evening?”

Jigger, flushed and sweating, dove for his back room at once, muttering apologies about “quality control” and “supply inconsistencies” as he ferried jars and paper packets to the counter out of his own private store. Snape said nothing as he examined each item with icy precision, the low hum of his displeasure filling the narrow shop like a creeping fog.

“That will do,” Snape said as soon as the man had managed to assemble a reasonable facsimile of the standard first-year kit. He unrolled the parchment with his list of NEWT supplies. “My own order.”

Jigger leaned forward to read the list, and his expression faltered once more. “Ah, well… We’ve had some trouble —“

“I can well imagine,” Snape said sharply. “I’ll take what you do have.”

A quarter-hour later, he was silently seething. The asphodel and lady’s mantle were acceptable. The dugbog tongue was not. The syrup of hellebore was crystallizing alarmingly in its jar — likely due to some unknown contaminant — and the pearl dust had a faint bluish tint that made him suspect it had been confused with the powdered billywig stings, or at least ground in the same unwashed mortar. By the time they made it through Snape’s list, the countertop looked like a battlefield.

Snape swept the surviving items into the crate with Potter’s kit and scattered a handful of coins across the counter — not a single knut above Mulpepper’s Knockturn Alley rate. “That will be all. Potter, if you’ll get the door?” He hefted the crate from the counter. “Mind your hands,” he reminded her, forcing enough softness into his voice to make it clear his irritation was not with her at the moment.

“Yes, sir.” She scurried ahead to push open the door with an elbow, and Jigger’s anxious voice rang out behind them at the sight of the bandages on her hands.

“Professor!”

Snape paused and turned.

“A-about the girl — Miss Potter, that is — It w-wasn’t — I do hope it wasn’t my stock that — that caused —“ He gestured helplessly at the girl’s bandages.

Snape glanced at them, then at Potter’s face. Her carefully blank expression told him she would not make difficulties, and perhaps worrying over her good opinion might do wonders for Jigger’s business practices. They would let the man fret.

“Come, Potter,” Snape said, and he swept past her into the street.

The shop bell clanged hollowly as the door shut behind them. The air outside, though damp and cold, felt almost clean after the sickly stench of Jigger’s deathtrap of a shop. The rain had slackened to a light drizzle, the sort that ignored umbrellas completely and crept into every seam and fold of fabric. His own robes, of course, were charmed against the weather, but he realized the girl’s new muggle clothing had no such protections. She was already hunching deeper into her layered sweatshirt and jacket, trying in vain to shield herself from the cold.

“Wait, Potter,” he said, setting the crate on a narrow ledge beneath a shop awning.

She stopped obediently, but her eyes followed his wand warily as he drew it. She masked her flinch this time as a shrug to adjust her jacket, and he swallowed back the urge to snap at her. “I am only going to cast a charm to keep the damp out of your new clothes,” he said as evenly as he could manage. It was not the child’s fault he’d frightened her, and his manner in Slug and Jigger’s could hardly have been reassuring.

“Yes, sir,” she murmured.

“Impervius.” She twitched again as the faint shimmer of the charm passed over her. “Better?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered. “Thank you.”

Snape grunted and slid his wand back into its holster in his sleeve. “I have a few more items to acquire before we return to the castle,” he said. “However, the next shop is no place for a student.”

He started to heft the crate again and froze as something tacky met his fingers.

For a heartbeat, his mind crowded with every worst possibility Jigger’s cesspit of a shop might have smeared across the wood, accompanied by sharp memories of Potter’s mangled fingers. Then he caught the telltale whiff of rotten cabbage, and his lip curled, heart rate slowing.

Flobberworm mucus.

Harmless, disgusting, and maddeningly adhesive.

He scrubbed it from his fingers with a corner of his handkerchief, vowing to wash thoroughly later.

“S-sir?”

“What is it, Potter?” he asked, crouching to inspect the underside of the crate for any further contaminants. He would have Potter clean and rebottle everything in her first detention, while this lesson was still fresh in her mind. And the Weasley twins would no doubt be in detention by the end of the week. They could deal with the pearl and billywig mess. Billywig stings were just the sort of ingredient they would gravitate toward in their mischief; better for them to at least learn proper handling before they sentenced some unsuspecting first year to eternal hovering.

When he realized Potter hadn’t answered him, he lifted his head and found her biting her lip again, fingers twitching in her pocket.

“I—I was just thinking, sir. If I can’t go with you to the next shop anyway, could I… would it be alright if—“

“Out with it, Potter,” he said, and instantly regretted the edge in his voice. He straightened and gave her his full attention.

To his surprise, she didn’t shrink back for once. Instead, she drew a small breath and forced herself to look him in the eye — wary, calculating, as though weighing whether he could be trusted with whatever she meant to say.

“I-it’s Ron, sir.”

Merlin preserve him if the child attempted to confide some schoolyard crush —

“He — his family couldn’t afford new robes this year. He’s got his brother’s old ones.”

Her words were hurried, but her gaze was determined, willing him to understand. Sounds and images lapped at the edge of his mind: Draco’s laugh, a bare ankle peeking out beneath a too-short hem, his own disgusted sneer as he’d plucked at her sleeve in the back room of Gladrags... It was an effort to hold himself apart.

“He lent me a set when mine were ruined, and they’re nearly too short for me.”

Snape’s eyebrow rose — the youngest Weasley had nearly six inches over Potter.

“Dra— people are making fun of him for it, sir, and he’s going to get himself into trouble over it, so I just thought — i-if my aunt and uncle are paying for my things today, m-maybe I could use the money I brought to buy him a-a proper set, too?”

She withdrew the potion-damaged galleons from her pocket again, fumbling a little in her haste. "I-I don't know how much they cost, sir, but Mr. Malfoy only put down a handful of these when he bought mine and Draco's together, s-so I reckon I can get him at least one set. Anything would help, I’m sure. I could wait for you in Madam Malkin's, sir. It's just there. Hagrid sent me in alone last time. I-I wouldn't set one foot outside it, I swear. And then you could make your stop f-for the other ingredients, and I wouldn’t be in the way —"

Snape held up a hand before her surprisingly well-reasoned argument could devolve any further into her nervous babble. “Let me see the galleons.”

She hesitated, an angry wariness surfacing in her eyes for an instant before receding again. There was the girl’s spine, that Gryffindor stubbornness. He was almost relieved to see it, but the memory of her shaking hands after the impediment jinx soured his amusement.

He opened his mouth to explain himself, but Potter suddenly shoved the coins into his hand with a squeaked, “Sorry, sir.”

“I only wish to determine whether they are still usable, Potter,” he said. They were in wretched shape — pitted and discolored — and he had no doubt Madam Malkin would refuse to touch them. Mulpepper would have no such qualms, however. Snape exchanged the girl’s damaged coins for an equal number of clean ones.

“These will suffice for two sets of school robes,” he said as he passed the money back to the obviously stunned Potter.

“Y-you mean I can go, sir?”

Something unpleasantly tight pulled at the back of his throat, but he dismissed the sensation and nodded. “Tell Madam Malkin she may use Nott or Pucey for reference; they are of a similar build to Weasley, and one or both of them will have purchased their robes from her this year.”

“Th-thank you, sir,” Potter said.

He ignored her astonishment and spelled the umbrella to hover over her head. “You are to go straight to Madam Malkin’s and remain there until I return. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No detours. No distractions.”

“Yes, sir. Of course. Thank you!”

Another of those horrifically earnest grins, and she was gone, the umbrella bobbing along as she splashed eagerly up the street.

He watched her go, then stood a moment longer in the drizzle, indulging in the feel of the cold on his face and neck. Slowly, the tension eased from his chest and shoulders. There was no need for it where he was going. No careful politeness, no measured tone or meticulous wording. The creatures who skulked in Knockturn Alley would be eager to appease him, but they needed no such careful handling.

Snape hefted the crate and shook the beaded water from his cloak with a sharp snap. Armor in place, he strode into the shadows.