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Chapter Text

The moment that Harriet laid eyes on the letter, she knew that she couldn’t let the Dursleys see it. Addressed to her, cupboard and all,  it was so clearly the property of Harriet Lily Potter that it would certainly give her aunt and uncle immense joy to deprive her of it. So Harriet did what she had plenty of practice doing: she thought fast. 

“Potter! We haven’t got all day! What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?” 

Harriet winced slightly. “Coming, Uncle Vernon!” And she set off toward the kitchen at a brisk clip, but not before sliding the thick envelope with its curling emerald-green script under the door of the hall cupboard where she slept. 

When she presented the remaining mail to her uncle, he snatched the bundle of letters from her hands without so much as a grunt of thanks. He shuffled aside some bills and adverts with obvious annoyance, before extricating a postcard bearing a photograph of the Isle of Wight. 

“Marge’s ill,” he informed Petunia, Harriet’s aunt. “Ate a funny whelk. I have told her about eating foreign food…” 

Harriet, unable to contain herself, snorted. Only the Dursleys would ever consider the Isle of Wight to be foreign. She rather regretted her indiscretion a moment later, when Aunt Petunia dealt her a smart cuff to the back of the head. 

“That’s quite enough from you,” Aunt Petunia sniffed. “Now, finish up breakfast and get out of my sight.” Harriet adjusted her glasses, which had been knocked loose by the blow.

In some situations, the phrase finish up breakfast might be referring to the consumption of said breakfast. Harriet, however, was not naive enough to think for even a moment that Aunt Petunia was concerned with her nourishment. So she hauled out the cast-iron skillet from underneath the stove and proceeded to prepare the morning’s fry-up: Full English minus the tomatoes, as her monstrous cousin, Dudley, despised all vegetables and didn’t want them touching his sausages and beans. One day, at the age of eight, Harriet had unwisely remarked that beans were vegetables. She had been locked in her cupboard for two days for her trouble, accused of “putting Dudley off his food.” As if Dudley could ever be put off his food, she thought now, watching her cousin dig into his baked beans with disgusting relish. She shook her head, managed to snag a piece of dry toast without alerting her aunt, and hurried from the kitchen before any of the Dursleys could think of another chore that needed doing. 

Knowing that the Dursleys would find it suspicious if she retired to her cupboard of her own free will, she merely nipped inside and grabbed the mysterious letter, stuffing it down her shirt. She headed out the front door, careful not to make too much noise. With any luck, she had twenty to thirty minutes before she was summoned for kitchen cleanup, and she intended to make use of every second. 

Harriet walked quickly down Privet Drive, turned left on Wisteria Walk, and made for the shelter of a beech tree between the gardens of Number 7 and Number 9. Once she sat down against the trunk, half-hidden behind Number 9’s hedge, she pulled out the letter. 

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of a yellowing parchment. There was no stamp. The front read: 

Ms. H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging, Surrey

When Harriet turned it over, she saw that the envelope was sealed in the old-fashioned way, with scarlet wax imprinted with an ornamental letter ‘H.’ She prised it open, and was greeted by an elaborate heading, which read: 

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supremem Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Ms. Potter, the letter read, 

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to 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.

Also included in the envelope were a long list of supplies, and something that looked like a train ticket.

Harriet stared at the letter. Witchcraft? Wizardry? Surely those things couldn’t exist. And even if they did, they wouldn’t be for her— pathetic, unwanted, orphan Harriet Potter, bane of the Durleys’ existence, could not possibly be a witch. But even as she thought that, Harriet couldn’t stop the wheels turning in the back of her mind. Was this letter the explanation for all of the strange things that had happened in her short life? 

Once, Aunt Petunia had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut Harriet’s hair into a blunt, horrible bob, leaving her bangs long and thick “to hide that horrible scar.” Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harriet, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where she was already laughed at for her baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had hacked it off. She had been given a week in her cupboard for this, even though she had tried to explain that she couldn’t explain how it had grown back so quickly. 

And minor incidents like that paled in comparison to the day of the vanishing glass. Before the summer holidays had started, Dudley’s birthday trip to the zoo had gone horribly awry when Harriet had a conversation with a Brazilian boa constrictor and somehow set it loose from its enclosure. When Harriet had experienced the twin emotions of pity for the trapped snake and anger at her brutish cousin shoving her aside, the glass of the boa’s enclosure had simply disappeared, leaving Harriet with the unshakeable feeling that she was somehow behind it all. 

Wouldn’t witchcraft explain all of these things? Didn’t it only make sense that the little talents and troubles that had dogged Harriet’s footsteps all her life added up to something bigger?  Besides, if the letter wasn't authentic, what was it? She had no one in her life aside from the Dursleys, and while they were certainly nasty enough to play a prank on her, she doubted that they were intelligent or imaginative enough to conceive of something like this. 

Harriet stood up, tucking the envelope and it contents back down her shirt. Twenty minutes had passed. She needed to get back to Number 4. 

Aunt Petunia, not altogether unexpectedly, had indeed noticed her absence, and boxed her soundly around the ears before ordering her to clean up the kitchen. But Harriet, accustomed as she was to her aunt’s blows, barely even noticed. She was cooking up a scheme to contact Deputy Headmistress McGonagall and get some answers.

Chapter Text

It was safe to say, as she strode up to the gates of Hogwarts School and bypassed the wards with an irritated wave of her hand, that Minerva McGonagall was not amused. It was early July. She had assembled the year’s book lists and made certain that they were sent out to incoming students. She had owled the names of all the Muggle-born first years to Charity Burbage and Silvanus Kettleburn, who were in charge of meeting with them to ease the transition between the non-magical and magical worlds. By rights, Minerva’s administrative work for the summer should have been done. She should have been settled in at her home outside of Inverness, free to read Transfiguration Today and look over her lesson plans for the upcoming term. 

Instead, Minerva was on her way to see Albus Dumbledore. It wasn’t so much that she minded the interruption of her leisure— Minerva was a responsible witch and work would always come first. No, what she minded was the reason she had just Apparated halfway across Scotland, the reason she had growled out Albus’s current candy-related password with such ire. 

Having bypassed the gargoyle, she raised a demanding fist to knock at the Headmaster’s office door. 

Albus, unsurprisingly, called out “Come in, Minerva,” before her hand had even made contact with the door. 

Albus, ever the gentleman, stood as she entered, as did the room’s other occupant. 

“Ah,” Minerva said, pausing briefly. “Severus.” 

The two men made, as they always did, quite the contrast. Albus Dumbledore was wearing deep purple robes today, lined with magenta and piped with gold. His silver hair and beard hung to his waist, and his bright blue eyes glittered behind the half-moon spectacles perched on his long, crooked nose. 

Severus Snape was a different story. Hogwarts’ resident Potions Master and Head of Slytherin House wore black, high-necked teaching robes over a black waistcoat and black trousers. If not the for white cuffs of his shirtsleeves peeking out from the flared wrists of his robes, it would have appeared that he did not own any non-black clothing. Even his lank hair was black, as were his eyes. 

Severus acknowledged his fellow professor with a brusque nod. “Minerva.” 

Albus waved his wand, conjuring a second armchair next to the one that Severus had obviously been using. “Do join us, Minerva. Severus and I were merely discussing some new additions to the OWL-level Potions curriculum.” 

Minerva, for her part, highly doubted that, but she took a seat nonetheless. Severus, on the other hand, made no move to sit down, and indeed looked as though he was more than ready to leave. Albus raised an eyebrow, and Severus surrendered with a put-upon sigh. 

Once everyone was arranged to his satisfaction, Albus summoned a tea service with another expert flick of his wand. There were two teapots, which Minerva summarily realized contained Earl Grey and Darjeeling— Severus’s preferred brew and her own. Albus must have alerted the house-elves the moment she had crossed the wards. 

“Now, Minerva,” Albus said, selecting a biscuit from the assortment provided on the tea tray, “I gather from your rather stiff bearing and the fact that you’ve cut short your holiday that something has caused you considerable distress?”

“Harriet Potter.” Minerva kept her focus on Albus. She didn’t need to look at Severus to know how he would react to that name. 

Albus looked up from the biscuits. “Harriet Potter?” 

Predictably, Severus made a disgusted noise. “Don’t tell me the brat’s causing trouble before she’s even arrived?” 

“That will be quite enough, Severus, thank you,” Albus rebuked the Potions Master calmly. “Minerva, would you be so kind as to elaborate?” 

Minerva waved her wand, conjuring up the letter that she had Vanished for safekeeping. She unfolded it and handed it to Albus, having already more or less committed its contents to her memory. 

The letter was written on lined paper that looked as if it had been torn from a Muggle child’s school exercise book. The message was in blue ink in a child’s messy hand, although it looked to Minerva like the child in question had at least made some effort towards legibility. The letter read: 

Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,

Thank you very much for the letter of acceptance to your school. I’m not quite sure what you mean about awaiting my owl, but there have been rather a lot of owls around the house the last few days. I think they look at me when I go outside. So I’m writing this letter and hoping that I figure out what to do with it because I can’t find a post address for your school.

I’m sorry but I don’t understand your letter entirely. My aunt and uncle say there is no such thing as magic but sometimes I think I make things happen. Does that make me a witch? Where do I buy witch things like cauldrons and the other things on your list? Do witch things cost very much? 

I am sorry to bother you but I hope this reaches you.

Yours sincerely Harriet Potter

The ever-present twinkle in Albus’s eyes seemed to fade as he read the letter. When he was finished, he passed it to Severus, whose dark eyes narrowed as he held the paper rather close to his nose, as if he were trying to see through it rather than read it. The room remained silent (except for the incessant chiming of Albus’s infernal knickknacks) until Severus, too, had absorbed the letter’s contents. Then he broke the silence.

“It figures that Petunia would pull something like this.”

Albus nodded solemnly. “Jealousy and fear are powerful forces. More powerful, it would appear, than I had hoped.” 

Minerva could hardly believe her ears. Neither of the men sounded nearly as surprised as they should have. “Just what exactly is the meaning of this? Do you mean to imply, Albus, that you knew Miss Potter’s guardians would deny her heritage? Would deny her powers?” 

Albus sighed. “No, I did not know. However, Petunia Evans— now Dursley— was jealous of her sister’s talents from quite a young age. It would seem that her jealousy has transformed into some form of denial.” 

“Tuney always was bitter,” Severus muttered. 

“Bitter?” Minerva cried. “These people have kept everything from her! Well, you wanted her growing up out of the spotlight, Albus, and that’s certainly been achieved!” 

Albus’s expression grew slightly pained. “Minerva, I truly did not know.” 

“We should have known. She’s the Girl-Who-Lived, we should have checked.” 

Albus inclined his head in acknowledgement of Minerva’s point. “You may very well be right. I’m afraid that I’ve put my faith in the blood wards for all these years. Lily’s blood— Petunia’s blood— was meant to keep Harriet safe.”

“The girl’s safety isn’t the issue,” Severus said tonelessly. “The issue is Petunia.” 

Minerva got to her feet. “I want to collect her, Albus. When it’s time to help her sort out her things.” 

“Ah, yes,” Albus mused. “That should do quite nicely. I’m sure that Charity and Silvanus rather have their hands full with the Muggle-born students. Do take Hagrid with you; I understand that he’s quite keen to see Harriet again.”

Minerva nodded shortly. “Of course.” 

“Well.” The twinkle, as Minerva was both relieved and annoyed to see, was beginning to return to Albus’s eyes. “There’s that settled. Do stay for tea, Minerva. I have some news that concerns both you and Severus regarding the Philosopher’s Stone…” 

Chapter Text

Harriet was in a pickle. Sending off her letter to Deputy Headmistress McGonagall had turned out to be surprisingly easy, as she had been all but mobbed by eager owls when she stepped out the door with her missive, and one of them had snatched the envelope out of her hand and flown off without further ado. What wasn’t quite so easily dealt with was the Dursleys’ reaction to this particular set of circumstances. It was Harriet’s bad luck that Aunt Petunia had been peering out the kitchen window in her usual suspicious manner when the mail-mad owls had set upon her. The resulting kerfuffle was even more dramatic than the fallout from the vanishing glass incident at the zoo. Aunt Petunia hauled Harriet into the living room by her ear and forced her painfully down onto the stiff settee next to the cold, gleaming fireplace. Uncle Vernon was summoned for his customary duty of shouting himself hoarse while Dudley sniggered in a corner like Harriet’s plight was his favorite comedy television show.

“What the devil do you think you were doing?” bellowed Uncle Vernon. “Cavorting about the street with those filthy birds like some sort of weirdo!” 

“She gave one of them a letter,” hissed Aunt Petunia. “It’s something to do with their set, Vernon.” 

Uncle Vernon, in his two signature moves, purpled and swelled. Harriet barely had time to wonder what, exactly, Aunt Petunia was talking about before Uncle Vernon bent with startling speed and seized Harriet forcefully by the collar. 

“What have you done, you little freak?”

“Nothing,” gasped Harriet. Deny, deny, deny, she thought. It was the only defense against the Dursleys, even if it wasn’t a good one. Uncle Vernon only gripped her more tightly. “Haven’t— done— anything—” 

“Oh, don’t give us that,” Aunt Petunia snapped. “We know perfectly well what your sort do with owls. Who was that letter for?” 

“My… my sort?” Harriet choked out. Hang on. That almost sounds like… Harriet jerked away from Uncle Vernon almost involuntarily, and at the same time he released her collar with a yelp, as if something had stung his fingers. Harriet forgot to deny. She forgot everything except for Aunt Petunia’s too-knowledgeable remarks. “You knew?” said Harriet. “You knew I’m a— a witch?” 

“Knew!” shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. “Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? I was the only one who saw her for what she was— a freak! 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!” 

She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years. Uncle Vernon, for his part, looked rather uncomfortable, but he made no move to stop his wife’s diatribe, nor to grab Harriet again. 

“Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you’d be just the same, just as strange, just as— abnormal— and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!” 

Harriet had gone very white. As soon as she found her voice she said, “Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!” 

“And that’s all we will tell you!” Aunt Petunia hissed. “Now, what were you doing with those owls? Who were you writing to? Was it that school?” She said the word ‘school’ as if it were something very nasty. 

Harriet made a mental note that Aunt Petunia knew about Hogwarts, but kept herself from reacting to the mention of a school. “How did my mum and dad die?” 

“Who were you writing to?” 

“I,” Harriet forced out through gritted teeth, “won’t tell you. Not unless you tell me what happened to my parents.” 

Aunt Petunia’s lips pressed together so tightly that it almost looked like the physical force of it might well crack her jaw. Uncle Vernon seemed to decide that he had been quiet long enough— and indeed, his blustering had been conspicuously absent for a couple of minutes now, which was longer than he could usually keep silent. 

“Cupboard!” he roared. “Now!” 

Harriet hesitated. She generally obeyed direct orders more or less immediately; it shielded her from the brunt of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s displeasure. But now she wanted answers. “I want to know what happened to my—” But before she could choke out the word ‘parents,’ Uncle Vernon had grabbed her by the collar again and was dragging her bodily from the living room. He threw her into the cupboard under the stairs without ceremony, then slammed the door and slid the bolt of the external lock home with a firm click. Then he bent down, his face even with the small grate on the cupboard door. 

“If you want to eat anytime soon,” he said nastily, “You’ll tell your aunt and I what we want to know, you hear?” Then he stomped away, leaving Harriet alone in the darkness of the cupboard with only the dust and spiders for company. She was shaking, though whether it was from fear, adrenaline, or rage she could not tell. With trembling hands, she reached for her thin pillow, feeling around in the pillowcase and pulling out the letter from Hogwarts. With only the slim threads of light coming through the grate, it was far too dark in the cupboard to actually read the letter, but Harriet clutched it nonetheless, tracing her fingers over the parchment to reassure herself that it was real. That Hogwarts was real. That, one way or another, Harriet Potter would get herself free of Privet Drive.

Chapter Text

Severus Snape needed a drink. A drink, and ideally a new job. It had been three days since Dumbledore had revealed his lunatic plan to hide the Philosopher’s Stone in Hogwarts, and preparation for the Stone’s protection were already well underway. Severus was pleased enough with his own contribution to the task, or would be once he had finished brewing the more delicate poisons. His fellow staff members, however— or at least those whose protections he knew about— had no such elegance. Sprout’s Devil’s Snare would only hinder the surest of fools, as surely any dunderhead who had received a magical education knew the simple tricks for escaping the wretched plant. As for Hagrid… well, Severus had no idea how the half-giant oaf had acquired a Cerberus, nor did he particularly want to know. Severus could only imagine what half-baked ideas the rest of the staff had come up with. Technically, they weren’t supposed to know what defenses were being mounted, besides their own, but Sprout had required assistance transplanting such a large Devil’s Snare specimen— assistance that Dumbledore had insisted Severus provide. And everyone knew about Hagrid’s beast; there wasn’t the slightest possibility of keeping that thing secret from anyone with half a brain. Luckily, Severus thought wryly, that description excluded the entire student body. 

Oh, the students. They would be descending upon the school in less than two months, shattering the last remnants of peace in the castle— peace that had already been considerably disrupted by this daft Stone business, not to mention the Potter girl’s letter… 

Severus shook his head. It was no use dwelling on what was happening with the little twit, no matter what promises he had made to Dumbledore. The situation was in Minerva’s hands now, and no doubt she would deal with it in the same formidable manner with which she dealt with House affairs— and given that the sodding Girl-Who-Lived was certainly bound to end up in Gryffindor, Minerva (and Dumbledore, for that matter) would surely move Heaven and Earth to see to the girl’s needs. And wouldn’t that pattern continue at school? Wouldn’t she be the favorite, fawned-over little lion like her father before her? For what must have been the thousandth time, Severus berated himself for the oath he’d made nearly ten years ago. He shouldn’t have been so rash as to make promises so quickly, practically over Lily’s cooling corpse, and to Albus Dumbledore of all people. But rash or not, he had made the oath, and now he would be held to it— held to protecting a noxious child who didn’t really need his protection.

It was not going to be a pleasant year. 

But then again, Severus Snape had given up hope for a pleasant anything long before the Potter girl was born. One did not, he reflected, join a dark lord because one was optimistic about the future. As if following this train of thought, the fireplace blazed with the sudden rush of green flames that heralded a Floo call. And there, floating amongst the emerald tendrils of fire, was the head of Narcissa Malfoy. Severus rose from the armchair in which he had been brooding. 

“Narcissa,” he said smoothly, “to what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Narcissa sighed, and it was a lovely noise, deceptively languid in that pure-blood manner she had cultivated to hide her razor-sharp wit and intellect. 

“I’m here at Lucius’s behest,” Narcissa said, her tone of voice letting Severus know exactly what she thought about that. If Severus hadn’t been accustomed to schooling his features into a perfectly blank mask, he might have rolled his eyes. For all his understanding of the pure-blood politics involved, he found the Malfoys’ marriage ridiculous. Narcissa had all the brains and most of the magical talent, yet she persisted in maintaining the illusion that she was nothing more than Lucius’s beautiful, subservient wife. It might have been mildly amusing if not for the way it gave Lucius’s already considerable ego an extremely unneeded boost. Really, the man strutted and preened like one of the absurd albino peacocks that resided on the grounds of Malfoy Manor. 

“And what does Lucius require today?” 

“He has… inquiries about this year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum.” 

Lucius, you nosy bastard. “You may inform Lucius that the situation continues along the same lines that it always has.” And damn Dumbledore for it, Severus thought. Why he continued to hire these incompetent, babbling dunces to teach the most important subject in the Hogwarts curriculum, he would never know. 

“Ah.” Narcissa had the grace to look slightly regretful. “Condolences, pet.” 

“I believe the Headmaster fears I may… slip into old habits.” 

Narcissa smirked. “Well, he’s not entirely a doddering old fool then.” 

Severus acknowledged Narcissa’s point with a nod, but did not comment. He had no illusions about the strength of Narcissa’s loyalty to the Dark— for all her breeding and the way she’d been raised, Narcissa didn’t care a whit about the Dark Lord or the pure-blood cause. No, Narcissa’s loyalty lay, and had for eleven years, wherever it needed to in order to protect her son. But right now, that was with Lucius. And Lucius, for all his egomania and idiocy, would crawl straight back to the Dark Lord if he ever returned. 

“Draco will be disappointed,” Narcissa continued. “He was so looking forward to receiving your instruction.” 

He was looking forward to currying favor and showing off at dueling, Severus thought, not entirely disparagingly. Really, considering who had fathered Draco, the boy had turned out all right— which, coming from Severus, was saying something, given his inherent dislike of children. “He will receive my instruction in Potions, and I trust that it will be satisfactory.” 

“And the latest Defense professor?” Narcissa fixed him with a sharp gaze. 

Severus sighed. “A Ravenclaw by the name of Quirinus Quirell, quite as useless as the last several idiots.” 

“I don’t want my son’s Defensive training to be lacking, Severus.” Narcissa’s voice was steely. 

Ah, there it was: the true reason for Narcissa’s visit. Lucius didn’t care in the slightest whether or not Dumbledore had finally seen fit to appoint Severus to the Defense Against the Dark Arts position; Narcissa did. He supposed he didn’t blame her. She was overprotective as it was; the thought of a fool like Quirrell being responsible for such an essential piece of Draco’s education was not to be entertained. 

“I will see to it that Draco’s schooling lacks for nothing, Narcissa,” Severus said, his voice a little gentler. “If Quirrell proves unsatisfactory, I will tutor the boy.” 

Narcissa looked grateful— or, as grateful as she ever did, which entailed a slight warmth in her eyes. “Thank you, Severus.” 

Severus inclined his head, this time in a clear dismissal, and Narcissa’s head disappeared in another whoosh of green flames. Severus reclaimed his armchair. Well, that was that. It looked as if Severus would be playing nursemaid to two first years. At least he could stomach Draco’s presence. 

The Floo blazed again, and Severus winced. Was he to have any peace today? 

Apparently, the answer was no, for now Minerva McGonagall’s head, facial features pinched with worry, appeared in his fireplace. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, Severus,” she said, her voice strained. “But there has been a change of timetable regarding the Harriet Potter situation.”

“What has happened?” Severus asked, slightly curious despite himself. What had the girl— or Petunia, come to that— done now? 

“Communications from Miss Potter have ceased,” Minerva answered, “Despite my having sent an owl days ago with explicit instructions for response. I’ve spoken with the Headmaster, and he feels that the situation with her relatives may have escalated. I’m to pay them a visit straightaway, and given the circumstances, the Headmaster thought it prudent that you accompany Hagrid and myself.” 

Severus didn’t need to ask what circumstances Minerva meant. If anyone could bully Petunia Dursley into compliance with the Headmaster’s wishes, it was him— something that Dumbledore knew quite well. 

“Very well, Minerva. I shall fetch my cloak and meet you and Hagrid at the gates.” Minerva gave a brisk nod and disappeared, leaving Severus alone once more. He stood up. There was no use delaying it: Harriet Potter was poised to enter the wizarding world, and it was time for Severus Snape to keep his promise.

Chapter Text

Three days was by no means the longest stretch of time that Harriet had ever been shut in her cupboard. However, Uncle Vernon hadn’t been bluffing when he’d threatened to withhold food, and three days is a long time for a growing girl of eleven to go without nourishment. It wasn’t entirely starvation, as Harriet had long ago learned to hide whatever small foodstuffs she could smuggle out of the Dursleys’ kitchen hidden in a shoebox in the cupboard for emergencies. Therefore, she had subsisted for the past seventy-eight hours on two stale heels of bread, one apple, a handful of crisps, and a miniature Mars bar, along with sips of water out of the sink during her once-daily bathroom visits. But the presence of these meager rations didn’t mean that she wasn’t extremely, unpleasantly hungry, the kind of hunger that announces itself not just with a growling belly but also with trembling limbs and vision that occasionally grew black spots around the edges— although, for all Harriet knew, that could have just been a result of being kept in a lightless cupboard. At any rate, she would break before long, and she knew it. She had perhaps another day of stubbornness in her before she would be forced to tell her aunt and uncle something, anything, in exchange for something more to eat. She was determined to make it through that last day, though. Harriet would satisfy Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon only when her body truly failed her. 

When the commotion outside began, Harriet wondered if that failure had come sooner than expected. Was she hallucinating? She had heard the doorbell ring and ignored it, assuming that one of Dudley’s friends had come ‘round. He’d have to wait; the Dursleys had gone out to the cinema and hadn’t yet returned. But the rising babble of voices from the doorstep didn’t belong to Piers Polkiss or any of Dudley’s other cronies… 

“… to proceed? If they’re away, the owl would have found her elsewhere.” 

“P’raps we oughta come back later?” 

“No, Hagrid. The owls are here; the girl must be as well.” 

The first voice was female, with a hint of Scottish brogue, and obviously belonged to an older woman— older than Aunt Petunia, at least. The second was male, loud and earnest. The third voice made Harriet shiver a little: it was low, smooth, and cold. 

“We can’t just—” the woman began, but she was interrupted by her low-voiced companion.

“Oh, but we can.” The voice sounded darkly pleased. “I am not a vampire, Minerva, and I do not need an invitation to cross Petunia Dursley’s threshold.” 

“Severus—”

Bang. Harriet jumped at the explosive noise, and suddenly, the voices were right there, directly outside her cupboard as if the barrier of the front door had simply been eliminated. Three sets of footsteps were crossing into the Dursley’s front hall. 

“Severus!” The woman exclaimed. “Was that entirely necessary?” 

The dark voice didn’t bother with an answer, just muttered, “So where is the wretched child? Homenum Revelio.” 

Harriet felt an unpleasant sensation shudder through the air just above her, as if some low-flying bird or bat had swooped over her head, barely brushing her with its wings. At the same time, to her fascination and horror, the door of her cupboard began to emit a faint golden glow. 

“What in Merlin’s name?” The woman’s voice had fallen to a shocked hush. Footsteps came still closer, and then Harriet heard the latch sliding open. She shrank back against the wall,, her heart pounding quickly and erratically. Who? What? But Harriet’s thoughts were scattered, her head throbbing with the dull pain that had begun to set in sometime that morning. So when the cupboard door was pulled open and light filtered in, all Harriet could do was stare helplessly. 

There were three figures before her. A severe-looking woman in a green cloak and pointed hat clutched the arm of a man who simply looked too big to be allowed, a man who was crouching down so that his face, largely obscured by a bushy beard and enormous caterpillar eyebrows, was level with the cupboard door. Slightly in front of them, closest to Harriet, was a slim, sallow man dressed all in black. Harriet knew instinctively that the low, cold voice belonged to him; she could all but see it in his fathomless black eyes. Her gaze flickered between the three strangers— and what strange strangers they were. With new comprehension, Harriet took in the woman’s pointed hat and the first man’s unnatural size. 

“Oh,” she said at last, breaking the silence that had hovered over the hall since the cupboard door had been opened. “The magic school. That makes sense.” And then Harriet Potter’s breaking point arrived with utter and startling finality, and she fainted. 

* * *

Minerva had imagined James and Lily’s child before. She had, after all, been a fairly unremarkable-looking infant except for the lightning-bolt curse scar, and Minerva couldn’t help but wonder how she would grow to resemble her parents, two of Minerva’s favorite students— even if her fondness for James had been tinged with exasperation more often than not. So she had occasionally allowed idle thoughts to cross her mind, blending James and Lily’s features into vague images of the girl who had defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. But she had never imagined this. 

Harriet did, indeed, closely resemble her parents: she had those strong Potter facial features through and through, and from what Minerva had seen of the girl’s eyes before they had fluttered closed, they had been bright Lily Evans green. But Minerva had always pictured a girl who looked healthy and contented, with the slight roundness of face and softness of limb that tended to accompany childhood. She had certainly not envisioned this… waif of a girl, eyes too big for her thin face, skinny as a rail and hidden away in a cupboard. 

But then the girl had collapsed, and Minerva had no further thought to spare her shock. 

“Severus,” she gasped, starting forward toward the girl’s prone form. But her shadowy coworker was already raising his wand with a muttered “Mobilicorpus,” levitating the child off the floor and out of the cupboard. 

Hagrid, for his part, was clumping into the next room. “In here, Professor Snape! Lay the poor tyke down on summat.” Minerva, Severus, and Harriet Potter’s floating body followed the half-giant into the living room, where Severus carefully lowered her onto the sofa. Minerva swept closer, pulling her own wand from her sleeve and waving it in long, slow arcs along the length of Harriet’s form. Severus followed suit. Neither of them was Poppy Pomfrey, but no one got to be a Hogwarts professor without learning to perform a basic diagnostic spell. The readings from the two spells were identical, and Minerva and Severus looked at each other grimly. 

“What’s wrong with ‘er?” Hagrid asked, clearly anxious. 

“Malnutrition and severe dehydration,” Severus said dourly. Hagrid just looked at him blankly. “Starvation, you dolt,” Severus snapped. “She hasn’t been fed.” 

Minerva made a warning noise in the back of her throat. While she understood Severus’s anger all too well in this moment, and shared in it, there was no reason to be cruel to Hagrid. She met Severus’s black gaze and lifted a stern eyebrow. Severus scowled, muttered something about getting another look at that cupboard, and stalked from the room. 

Minerva sighed and turned to Hagrid, whose kindly eyes were crinkled in concern. “There, now, Hagrid. Miss Potter will be fine, I assure you.” 

“Poor little Harry,” Hagrid said, voice hushed. He took half a step forward and kneeled on the floor next to the sofa, reaching out a tentative hand to stroke Harriet’s tangled black hair gently. The girl looked even smaller with Hagrid’s large hands hovering by. “She’s jus’ a mite,” he continued in a rough whisper. “Shouldn’t she be a bit bigger, Professor?” There were no bones about it; Harriet Potter was very small for an eleven-year-old, even if neither of her parents had been exceptionally tall. 

“Miss Potter has not been provided with the requisite nutrients or care to flourish physically,” Severus said from the doorway, having rejoined them without catching Minerva’s eye. There was something odd about his voice; Minerva peered at him suspiciously. Gone was the anger that had caused him to lash out at Hagrid, and in its place was a cold blankness that made her even more wary. She made a note to look around the house herself in a bit and see what had set him off. “Minerva? Shall we wake her?” 

Minerva took another look at the unconscious girl and then nodded firmly. She leveled her wand at Harriet’s forehead. “Enervate.” The girl awoke with a gasp and a jolt. Minerva placed a hand on her shoulder. “Easy, Miss Potter. Breathe. Severus, some water please.” Severus conjured a goblet with a quick wave of his wand, and then filled it with a murmured Aguamenti charm. 

“Here,” he said shortly, striding forward and thrusting the goblet at a startled-looking Harriet. Minerva glared at Severus, but Harriet just accepted the drink, reaching out a trembling hand as if she were very tired. 

“Did I… pass out?” the girl asked quietly, her large green eyes meeting Minerva’s as if she was searching for answers in the older woman’s countenance. 

“Yes, Miss Potter, you fainted. I apologize for startling you; it was not our intention.” 

“You’re Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,” Harriet said after a couple sips of water, “From the magic school. Aren’t you?” 

Minerva had barely opened her mouth to reply, when there came a furious roar from the direction of the hall. 

“WHAT IN RUDDY BLAZES HAPPENED TO THE FRONT DOOR?” 

The Dursley family had returned home.

Chapter Text

Minerva rubbed the bridge of her nose. This was not how any of this was supposed to be going. When she got back to Hogwarts, she was going to have a long chat with Albus about the amount of nasty surprises that kept cropping up around the Girl-Who-Lived. But for now there was the child herself to contend with, and her relatives, not to mention Severus, who was still sporting that dangerously blank expression that always put Minerva on her guard. She knew that the younger man was extremely loyal to Albus (for reasons that she herself had never been able to ascertain), but Severus Snape had a checkered past that couldn’t be entirely overlooked even in a post-Voldemort world. Severus’s black rages were rather… something to behold, and Minerva had a feeling that he would see the Dursley family as a prime target. Well, at the very least he would contain himself until Harriet was out of the house; Minerva would make certain of that. 

“Well, it appears our departure will have to be hastened somewhat,” she said briskly. “Miss Potter, do you feel that you can stand? Perhaps if Hagrid were to assist you?” The girl nodded. There was a determined set to her features that was reminiscent of both Lily and James, a subtle jut of the chin and spark in the eyes. Minerva felt a burst of pride, sudden and unbidden, bloom in her chest. There had been unforseen tragedy in Harriet’s short life, but the child brimmed with Gryffindor spirit through and through. Yes, regardless of the harm inflicted  upon her by these intolerable Muggles, Harriet Potter would be fine. 

* * *

Vernon Dursley was an ugly, walrus-like man, and something in Severus rejoiced at the thought of causing him permanent damage. He had strode into the hallway as soon as Dursley’s bellow had alerted them to his return, with two specific goals in mind. The first was the occupy the Muggles so that Minerva could make a more or less discreet exit with Hagrid and the girl. The second goal was less altruistic; Severus wanted to see the Dursleys bleed. Well, he wanted to see Vernon bleed. He wasn’t entirely sure that he could physically harm Lily’s flesh and blood. Regardless, Petunia would not be happy by the time Severus followed his colleagues from Privet Drive. Then again, Petunia didn’t look particularly happy now, standing in the hallway behind her enormous husband with her bony hand on the shoulder of a blond, rather porcine boy who must have been their son. 

Severus smiled, and it was a predatory thing. 

“Petunia.” 

* * *

“No, no, it’s no use Apparating,” the stern woman (Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, Harriet reminded herself) was saying to the giant man (Hagrid). “I’m sure you realize that I can’t Side-Along the both of you, and I would quite like to have you at hand, Hagrid.” The in case the child collapses again was unspoken, but Harriet could all but see the words pass between the two adults. “I’m afraid that in the absence of a connected Floo, it’ll have to be the Knight Bus.” Harriet looked between McGonagall and Hagrid with rapidly diminished understanding; it seemed as if every other word out of the woman’s mouth was a term that she had never heard before. McGonagall’s Scottish accent also seemed to be thickening somewhat, as if she were growing more distracted, and that didn’t help Harriet’s comprehension any. 

Hagrid made a small, stifled noise in response to McGonagall’s declaration, and Harriet realized that he looked decidedly green. This ‘Knight Bus’ obviously didn’t sit too well with him.  However, he didn’t protest, just clapped a surprisingly gentle hand on Harriet’s shoulder, as if he were prepared to hold her up single-handedly. Honestly, he probably was. 

The hall was suspiciously quiet. After Uncle Vernon’s initial bellow of rage and an ear-splitting shriek of “You!” from Aunt Petunia, not a sound had spread into the living room beyond a low murmur that had to be coming from the other wizard— the Dursleys, after all, were not known for restraint when it came to volume. 

“Does this house have another door, Miss Potter?” Harriet redirected her attention to Deputy Headmistress McGonagall. 

“Um, yeah, off the kitchen, but it lets out into the back garden. No street access.” 

“And I suppose it wouldn't do for Hagrid to simply lift us over the fence,” McGonagall muttered. “Too many prying eyes in this godforsaken neighborhood.” Harriet stifled a small grin at that, imagining McGonagall’s reaction should she have witnessed Aunt Petunia’s habit of half-hanging out of the kitchen window in order to see and hear as much of her neighbors’ business as possible. 

“Very well.” McGonagall seemed to have made her mind up about something. “We will move through the front hall quickly and quietly. No… hysterics, please, Hagrid.” Hagrid nodded solemnly, as if he’d had every intention of throwing some sort of fit before McGonagall spoke, but now was seeing the error of his ways. And with that, McGonagall crossed calmly and decisively to the far side of the living room and entered the hall, Hagrid shepherding Harriet behind her. 

What greeted Harriet was as strange and welcome a sight as ever she had seen. The Dursleys were huddled together in a clump against the staircase, Aunt Petunia trying with all her might to conceal a terrified Dudley behind her. Uncle Vernon’s mustache was twitching, but he was otherwise still, and Aunt Petunia looked as though she were fully prepared to burst into angry tears. Facing the trio with what Harriet assumed must be a magic wand leveled threateningly at Vernon’s throat was her third rescuer, the dour black-clad man who had offered her water. 

“Severus,” McGonagall’s voice was calm but held a definite edge, and her accent was once more tightly controlled. “We’re taking the Knight Bus. Please follow when you’re finished here.” She spared a glance at the Dursleys, then returned her attention to the man. “And do follow quickly. There’s no need to linger. Here,” she waved a wand Harriet hadn't even realized she was holding, producing a small scroll out of nowhere, “Are the coordinates.” 

The man took his eyes off Harriet’s relatives for the first time since they had entered the hall, although he kept his wand pointing steadily towards Vernon. “You’re not taking her to Hogwarts?” 

“I should say you’re not!” Aunt Petunia shrieked without warning. “She’s not going to that— that school to learn how to be a filthy freak like you, Severus Snape! I swore I’d make her normal!” 

Wait a minute, Harriet thought, realization dawning on her as she watched her aunt and the wizard. Do they… know each other? 

Snape was in Aunt Petunia’s face before Harriet even realized that he had moved. “Normal?” His voice was even quieter than before, and sounded infinitely more dangerous. “What, pray tell, is normal about locking a child in a cupboard, Petunia?” 

Uncle Vernon had apparently lost any remaining patience. “How dare—” 

But Snape had clearly had enough. He sliced his wand through the air in a hard downward stroke, intoning “Langlock!” Vernon went silent, clutching at his throat in what looked like combined panic and rage. 

“I’m taking her home to Poppy,” McGonagall said as though nothing had occurred, although there was some wariness in her eyes. “I believe it will be less overwhelming.” 

Harriet noticed that Snape raised a sardonic eyebrow when McGonagall said ‘home to Poppy,’ but he kept his mouth shut, simply nodding shortly and returning his attention to the Dursleys. 

“Well, then, Miss Potter. Let us be off.” McGonagall strode out of the demolished front door with Harriet and Hagrid at her heels, and Harriet stole one last look into the hall. Harriet was not an overly optimistic girl. She knew that there was every chance that she might have to return to her relatives. But she was leaving them for now, and for now, that was enough.

Chapter Text

Wizard travel, Harriet quickly decided, was terribly exciting, but with rather more of an emphasis on ‘terribly’ than she might have liked. While Hagrid ushered Harriet along with a helpful eagerness that almost sent her sprawling onto the sidewalk two or three times, McGonagall had taken out her wand— it was different than Snape’s, Harriet noted, carved of lighter wood and more elegant— and held it straight out in front of her as if she were preparing to conduct an orchestra. However, she had yet to move it or say a single word when the enormous triple-decker bus appeared in a flurry of violent purple and screeching brakes. 

A pimply young man wearing a porter’s cap over his obviously unwashed hair was lolling in the bus’s door, seemingly unconcerned that he and his vehicle had just appeared out of nowhere. “Welcome to the Knight Bus,” he said, reading from a grubby slip of paper but sounding as though he’d memorized the words long ago. “Transport for the stranded witch or wizard—”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Shunpike, we’re familiar with this unfortunate vehicle.” McGonagall sounded cross. “Allow us to board, please.” 

The youth looked up at the sound of her voice, a rather startled expression on his face. “Professor McGonagall, ma’am! Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, right this way…” He stepped aside and executed a floppy bow. The corner of McGonagall’s mouth twitched, but she swept Harriet onto the bus without another word. Hagrid followed, bent nearly double and holding his breath to squeeze through the door. 

“Stanley Shunpike graduated from Hogwarts a few years ago,” McGonagall said to Harriet as they took their seats in a couple of bizarrely upholstered armchairs near the middle of the bus. “I’m sorry to say that I’m not at all surprised to see that this is what he’s made of himself.” 

Harriet kept quiet, slightly uncomfortable. If McGonagall made the young bus conductor nervous even years after he’d left school, she was obviously an intimidating teacher and not someone to cross. But she’d been more or less kind to Harriet thus far, hadn’t she? 

“We’ll be needing stops in Hogsmeade and Inverness, if you please,” McGonagall called up to Stanley and the driver. 

Stanley nodded. “Right you are, professor! We’ll be makin’ a loop o’ northern Scotland straightaway— Madam Marsh needs Culloden.” He jerked his chin, which bore an extremely unattractive goatee, toward a small woman in a round red hat sitting at the front of the bus, clutching a wand and a handbag as though she feared she might lose one or both. Harriet barely had time to take in the woman’s expression— what is she so nervous about?— when the bus shot forward like it had been propelled from a cannon, nearly smashing into several postboxes and a parked car. Harriet clamped her hands down on the arms of her chair, wishing she could get better purchase but settling for digging her fingertips into the overstuffed cushioning as best she could. 

Stanley, meanwhile, was still talking. “Then we’ll make our next Hogsmeade and Diagon stops.” 

McGonagall nodded to herself, obviously pleased or at least satisfied. “That should do. Hagrid, will you be all right taking the bus as far as Hogsmeade? I’d like you to make a report to Professor Dumbledore as soon as possible.”

Hagrid, who was far too big for the bus’s armchairs and was therefore crouching awkwardly near the door, looked as though he might be sick. Harriet, whose last glance out the bus’s window had revealed that they were traveling far faster than any bus should be able to, didn’t blame him. However, he perked up at the words ‘Professor Dumbledore.’ “O’ course, professor! You don’t need to go worryin’ about me.” 

“Splendid.” McGonagall, Harriet noticed, never leaned back in her chair, but managed to keep perfectly upright even as the Knight Bus hurtled around corners and made hairpin turns. Almost without thinking about it, Harriet attempted to do the same, but was thrown back into the deep recesses of the armchair by the bus’s momentum. 

Fortunately, it only took them about five minutes to reach Culloden, then another terrifying two or three to Inverness. Harriet waved shyly at Hagrid, who shook her hand very gently with just two of his enormous fingers. Harriet decided that she quite liked Hagrid, and was more than a little sorry to leave him behind on the Knight Bus and follow the more intimidating McGonagall onto the street. 

The bus had deposited them on the outskirts of Inverness, and McGonagall led her not farther into the city, but away from it. When the houses and buildings lining the road upon which they trod began to give way to trees and grass, McGonagall pulled Harriet behind an enormous yew tree. 

“Now, Miss Potter, I warn you that most do not enjoy their first time Apparating— that is to say, traveling instantaneously between two points. However, we do not have far to go, so the shock should be lesser.” She held out her arm to Harriet. “Please do hold tightly.” Harriet seized McGonagall’s forearm with all of her not-very-considerable might. She didn’t entirely understand what was about to happen, but she had taken in the words ‘traveling instantaneously’ and was prepared for something very dramatic. 

It was, indeed, very dramatic. The world had seemed to tilt and spin away, leaving Harriet with no sense of anything solid beyond the older woman’s arm to which she was still clinging desperately. They had been squeezed into nothing, and then spit out again. Harriet fell to her knees, dizzy and nauseous and feeling very much like she might faint for the second time that day. 

McGonagall bent down and helped Harriet to her feet. “There, there, Miss Potter,” she said bracingly, but with worry furrowing her formidable brow. Harriet looked up. Gone were the dwindling outbuildings of Inverness, gone was the paved road. They stood in a narrow dirt lane in the countryside— Harriet thought they were in the Highlands but couldn’t be sure. Everything as far as the eye could see was all sedge and hair-grass and heather, with what looked like a herd of sheep in the distance. At the end of the path was a modest white house, two stories with dormer windows and a gray-shingled roof. The house was surrounded by a low stone wall, along which grew yellow buttercups and purple thistle. It was beautiful. 

“You have sheep,” Harriet said. 

McGonagall looked at her strangely, as if whatever she had been expecting, that sentence was not it. Nevertheless, a corner of her mouth tugged upwards in a small smile. “Poppy likes them,” she said by way of explanation. “Of course, we have to pay a Muggle farmer to look after them during term time.” 

“Muggle?” 

“It means a non-magical person.” 

“Like the Dursleys?”

McGonagall’s nostrils flared, and her eyes took on a stormy look. “Yes, your abhorrent relatives would qualify. Now, let’s get you indoors, shall we?” She led Harriet along the path and through the narrow gap in the stone wall. 

As they crossed that barrier, Harriet felt a peculiar sensation wash over her, warm and slightly electric. It was overpowering, and she couldn’t help but gasp. “What was that?” 

“Protective magical wards,” McGonagall answered. “They keep Muggles from discovering the house unless I desire it, and repel those wizards who may wish us harm.” 

The house had a Dutch door with the top half already open to the Highland air. McGonagall unlatched the bottom portion to let them both inside. “Poppy?” she called. Harriet looked around. They stood in a hallway that appeared to stretch all the way to the back of the house with rooms branching off of it on either side. The white walls were hung with photographs, and the floor was a dark wood that was partially covered by a scarlet runner. At the very end of the hall stood a handsome grandfather clock, which had, oddly enough, three faces.

Another woman appeared in the doorway nearest the clock. “Minerva McGonagall, what time do you call this? Your meetings with the Headmaster never take this long!” She jabbed a finger at one of the clock faces and then started down the hall toward them, only taking a few faltering steps before pausing, blue eyes lighting upon Harriet. 

“We have a guest,” McGonagall said, a little wearily. “This is Harriet Potter. Miss Potter, this is Madam Poppy Pomfrey.” 

Madam Pomfrey’s eyes had widened for some reason upon hearing Harriet’s name, and her hand had flown to her mouth. Harriet ignored this odd behavior and took the chance to study the other woman. She was a nearly perfect contrast to McGonagall— short where the latter was tall, with soft features and gently curling hair, wearing a pale blue witch’s robe. While her features suggested that she was close in age to McGonagall, maybe even a little younger, her hair had gone gray where McGonagall’s— at least from what Harriet could make out under the pointed hat— was still jet black. 

During her observation of Madam Pomfrey, McGonagall had begun speaking again. Harriet wasn’t paying attention, but she caught the main points. Unprecedented circumstances, Poppy. Malnourished. Needs medical attention. 

“Silly woman, why in the world didn’t you send a Patronus ahead? I could have been ready for her by now.” Pomfrey seemed as if she had recovered from whatever brief spell hearing Harriet’s name had placed her under. She all but swooped forward, taking Harriet by the wrist with one hand and waving a wand over her with the other. Harriet was taken aback, both by Pomfrey’s swift actions and by the fact that she had called stern, intimidating Deputy Headmistress McGonagall ‘silly.’ 

Pomfrey bustled Harriet down the hallway and into the room that she had initially appeared from, with McGonagall close on their heels. Harriet caught a closer look at the grandfather clock as they passed it; the three faces were labelled ‘Home,’ ‘Hogwarts,’ and ‘Other,’ each with two hands and a series of symbols and pictures around the edge where the numbers usually were. 

The room they entered was a kitchen, but Harriet only got a cursory look at it— more white walls, a yellow tablecloth, and was the wooden spoon in that bowl stirring all by itself—before she was hurried into a larger adjoining chamber. This space seemed to be part storeroom, part workroom, and part greenhouse, with three enormous windows that took up most of the front wall and let the evening light stream in. Another wall was largely taken up by a worktable and several cabinets, while a third boasted shelves of potted plants. 

Pomfrey pulled a three-legged stool out from under the worktable and guided Harriet into a sitting position with a firm hand. She gave the stool a disparaging look, and flapped her hand at it as she hurried over to one of the cabinets. “Minnie, would you?” 

McGonagall, Harriet was both amused and slightly horrified to see, blushed at being called ‘Minnie,’ but she nevertheless waved her wand at the stool, which promptly began to transform with Harriet still on it. When it had settled again, she was now seated in a high-backed armchair— not nearly as well-stuffed as those on the Knight Bus, but large and comfortable enough. 

“I’m going out front to meet Severus,” McGonagall muttered, her cheeks still pink. “He should be here any moment.” 

“Severus Snape?” Pomfrey exclaimed, whirling around with a small bottle in each hand. “He’s coming here?” But McGonagall had already swept out through the kitchen and into the hall. Pomfrey shook her head and made a tsk-ing noise as she uncorked both of the bottles and brought them over to Harriet. She handed one over, indicating that Harriet should drink its contents. “Nutritive Potion,” she said in response to Harriet’s questioning expression. “It will help your body replenish the vitamins and nutrients it’s missing.” Harriet drank the potion, which tasted like nothing so much as liquified herbal cough lozenges. Then she drank the next potion that Pomfrey handed her— “I suspect your head aches? This will help.”— and finally a tall glass of water, taking it in small sips as she was instructed. 

“Now,” said Pomfrey, as she took away the empty glass and set it on the worktable, “Would you like porridge or toast?” Harriet, who was by now more than a little overwhelmed, just stared in response to the question. Pomfrey’s businesslike expression softened. “You need to eat something simple, dear. Something that won’t make your stomach cramp. Would you prefer porridge or toast?” 

“P-porridge, please,” Harriet whispered. She didn’t know where her earlier bravado had gone. She had handled Apparating, and the Knight Bus, and strange witches and wizards. She had left the Dursleys, left England, and she was fairly certain that she had seen some of the photographs in the hallway move. She had dealt with it all, just as she had always dealt with whatever hardship came her way. But she was growing more exhausted by the minute, and didn’t quite know what to make of so many adults being so kind to her. 

“Porridge it is.” Pomfrey smiled kindly, helped Harriet down from the chair, and led her into the kitchen. 

Hang it all, Harriet thought with a burst of feeling as Pomfrey squeezed her hand. I don’t need to know what to make of it. So, tired and confused though she was, she squeezed Pomfrey’s hand back tentatively, and let herself be cared for. 

Chapter Text

Harriet didn't meet Albus Dumbledore that evening, nor did she encounter Professor Snape again. She was vaguely aware of people coming and going in the house, of raised voices now and again, and the distinct echoing thump of Hagrid’s large feet, but the room Pomfrey had shown her to was on the second floor of the farmhouse, and distant enough from the downstairs goings-on that Harriet could doze more or less easily. Her sleep was fitful at first, as she couldn’t seem to stop herself from keeping one ear cocked to whatever was happening downstairs— she was awoken once rather suddenly by the sound of an outraged McGonagall crying out “You did what, Severus?”— but after a couple of hours things quieted, and Harriet slept deeply. 

She woke to midmorning sunlight, which seemed amplified rather than blocked by the thin yellow curtains that covered the eastern-facing window. Harriet untangled herself from the blankets she had nested into overnight, slipped to the floor, and padded to the window, pushing the curtains aside to look out. The Highlands were just as lovely as they had been the day before— indeed, even more so now that Harriet could devote more of her attention to the landscape. Hills rose around the house like slumbering giants, content to drowse forever beneath their patchwork quilt of grasses and flowers. Harriet recognized the same heather and buttercups that grew alongside the farmhouse’s outlying wall, but there was also an abundance of a white flower that she didn’t recognize, as well as any number of low, wild bushes and shrubs. The sky was a nearly frosty blue that looked uncommonly cold for July, and the sun shone like clarified butter over the whole scene. 

Harriet wore no watch, and there was no clock in the room, but it was clear enough from the quality of the light and the position of the sun that it was getting on in the morning, and was indeed much later than Harriet usually rose. But then again, today there had been no Aunt Petunia hammering on her closet door and screeching. Whatever kind of people Pomfrey and McGonagall were, they clearly didn’t begrudge Harriet her sleep. 

There came the creak of a footstep outside the bedroom door, as if in thinking of the two witches Harriet had inadvertently summoned one. The door opened a crack, and Madam Pomfrey’s kind, rosy face peered around the edge. 

“Oh, good, you’re awake. Did you sleep well?” 

“Mmm.” Harriet nodded her response, not mentioning the snippets of argument she had heard last night. 

Seemingly less than content with Harriet’s answer, Pomfrey bustled into the room, levitating a bundle of something and then directing it towards the bed with a flick of her wand. Harriet was so distracted by this that she barely registered Pomfrey coming closer to her until her chin had been grasped and pushed gently upward, and she was being thoroughly examined by blue eyes at close range. 

“Still a bit peaked,” Pomfrey announced, releasing Harriet from her inspection. “But breakfast will help with that, I expect.” She smiled and gave Harriet a firm pat on the shoulder. “Toothbrush, towel, and a change of clothes,” she said, gesturing towards the bundle she’d placed on the bed. The bath is the door just next to yours, help yourself to soap and toothpaste and whatever else you need.” Pomfrey smiled again and then swept out into the hall. She was, Harriet decided, extremely efficient in her kindness. 

Twenty minutes later, Harriet was washed, brushed, and dressed in the clean clothes that had been left for her, which consisted of a rather shapeless blue dress that must have been Pomfrey’s— for while it was overlarge on Harriet, it didn’t pool around her feet the way anything belonging to the statuesque McGonagall would have— and a green tartan jumper. She folded her own drawstring denim trousers and boxy t-shirt carefully, placing them at the foot of the bed. Then she slipped her battered trainers onto her bare feet, set her jaw, scraped her damp hair out of her eyes, and headed downstairs. She found the kitchen by sound and smell rather than any recollection of the house’s layout; she’d been far too tired the day before to be shrewd or calculating. But that was all right, she decided, following her nose to the source of the warm butter-and-cinnamon scent wafting through the halls. 

The McGonagall-Pomfrey kitchen was just as cheery in the bright morning sunshine as it had been in the rich, subtle light of evening. The yellow tablecloth, Harriet noted with interest, was worked over with delicate botanical embroidery in a slightly darker gold thread, and the white walls were offset pleasantly by a dark wood trim that matched the floor. The window’s wooden shutters, thrown open to the day, were the same soft blue as the crockery that was currently, to Harriet’s somewhat muted surprise, arranging itself neatly on the table. McGonagall was sitting at the table sipping tea, her queenly straight-backed posture and neat green robes somehow not at odds with the cat-shaped house slippers that Harriet could see peeking out from behind a table leg. Pomfrey was still bustling— Harriet was beginning to think that she never stopped— and seemed to be conducting the procession of crockery over her shoulder even while she piled oatcakes onto a plate with her wand-free hand. 

“Ah, Miss Potter.” McGonagall’s voice was as crisp as the pleats of her robes, but still pleasant, and accompanied by a half smile and a short nod. “Do have a seat.” Harriet pulled out the chair directly across from McGonagall and slid onto it, pulling up her toes to rest her feet on the crossbar between its legs. “Tea?” At Harriet’s shy nod, McGonagall picked up the wand laying next to her saucer and flicked it at a small copper teapot, which promptly rose and poured a delicate stream of liquid into the blue teacup at Harriet’s elbow. Then there was a slight clatter as what looked to be a sugar bowl and a pitcher of milk slid across the table. Harriet’s eyes widened slightly at the casual display of magic, but she said nothing as she added a lump of sugar to her tea and took a sip. Pomfrey placed a bowl of porridge in front of her, sweetened with honey and cinnamon unlike the night before, and settled into a third chair, placing the plate of oatcakes in the middle of the table. There was a flash of long fingers so quick that Harriet thought she had imagined it, but then McGonagall was eating an oatcake in small, measured bites. Harriet glanced at Pomfrey, who was watching the other woman’s actions with a fond smile. Pomfrey caught Harriet’s eye and winked. 

“Well, now,” McGonagall said after a bite of oatcake, seemingly oblivious to the small exchange, “Now that you’ve had some rest, I expect you have questions?” 

Harriet took a bite of porridge while she considered her response. The truth was, she had so many questions that she didn’t quite know where to begin. “My parents,” she answered after a moment. “If I’m— um, magic, were they?” 

“Yes,” said McGonagall. 

“Magic, and lovely,” said Pomfrey. 

This sent a little jolt through Harriet. “You knew them?” At this, a little laugh from Pomfrey, and a slight softening of McGonagall’s rather severe resting expression. 

“Yes,” McGonagall said again. “Lily and James were both at Hogwarts— Poppy and I have both worked there for a long time, you see. I was their Head of House.” 

“And I,” Pomfrey added, “Patched your father up time and again when he landed himself in the infirmary.” 

It was as if the two witches had opened a floodgate within Harriet’s very soul, and she quickly forgot her remaining reservations, peppering McGonagall and Pomfrey with question after question about Lily and James’ character, interspersed with inquiries about Hogwarts. By the time breakfast was finished, Harriet had several lovely anecdotes about her parents to tuck away for later consideration, which was more than she’d ever had of them before. That was when talk, perhaps inevitably, turned to their death— which had not been, as the Dursleys had informed her, in a car crash. Pomfrey seemed to retreat into the background a bit for this part of the discussion, leaving it largely to McGonagall, however halting her replies were. And so, it was in McGonagall’s clipped but carefully considered words that Harriet Potter learned of her parents’ murder and her own miraculous survival, of Lord Voldemort and her fame. Of the true story behind the lightning-shaped scar on her forehead. 

“And so Professor Dumbledore placed you with your aunt and uncle for protection,” McGonagall finished, her face souring. “Because your mother’s bloodline, through your aunt, could offer a sort of ward against dark magic. Of course,” she sniffed, “That arrangement will not continue.” 

Harriet’s heart leapt. “You mean…” she began slowly, “… I don’t have to go back to the Dursleys?” 

McGonagall stiffened. Pomfrey swelled. At the exact same time, both witches said, “Of course not.” 

Chapter Text

After nearly a week at the McGonagall-Pomfrey farm, Harriet thought that she had a handle on what it meant to live in a world full of magic. But as she stepped through the gap in the still-shifting brick wall and into Diagon Alley, she was forced to concede that she had no idea. The bustling cobblestoned street was a world away from the farmhouse, where magic was ever-present but incidental, simply a facet of everyday life. Diagon Alley was a riot, an explosion, as if it had been created for the express purpose of seeing how much magic could possibly fit in one place. Every storefront  demanded Harriet’s attention, tugging her gaze this way and that, from floating book displays to clothes on moving mannequins to a window that looked as if it had been entirely overgrown by gently undulating vines. If she’d been left to her own devices, Harriet supposed she might have stood stationary at the mouth of Diagon Alley for the remainder of the day, darting her eyes between shops and completely unable to choose where she should venture first. Luckily, Minerva McGonagall suffered from no such hang-ups. 

“Right, then,” she said, briskly but not unkindly, steering Harriet forward with a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder. “Gringotts first. We need to visit your vault if you’re to buy anything.” 

Gringotts. Harriet’s gaze was immediately drawn to the towering snowy-white building, which was at least twice as tall as all the shopfronts and crowned by an enormous dome. It looked just like the drawing that McGonagall had shown her the other day, in an old but obviously well-cared-for book called Architectural Wonders of Magical Britain. The book had also boasted pictures of Hogwarts Castle, but Pomfrey had come into the library before Harriet could examine them. “Some things simply must be experienced in person,” Pomfrey said as she hurried the book out of Harriet’s hands with a slightly scolding look at McGonagall. “And Hogwarts is one of those things. Just wait until you see it for real, dear.” So Harriet and a pink-cheeked McGonagall had avoided any drawings or photographs (moving wizard photographs!) of Hogwarts as they looked through McGonagall’s vast collection of books, content to peer at other wizarding locales. 

Looking up at Gringotts Bank, Harriet thought she better understood what Pomfrey had meant. The drawing she had seen had clearly been an excellent likeness, but it couldn’t prepare her in the slightest for actually striding up those marble steps at McGonagall’s side, nodding politely to the crimson-jacketed goblins stationed near every column. Harriet did her very best not to stare at the goblins, as she had been forewarned that it wasn’t particularly polite, but she couldn’t help sneaking the occasional sideways glance at their pointy teeth and long, crooked fingers. 

McGonagall had a quick conversation with a goblin and produced a small gold key from the pocket of her robes, and then they were being led down into the depths of Gringotts’ subterranean tunnels, twisting and turning in a cart that hurtled so fast, only McGonagall’s judicious use of a Sticking Charm could keep Harriet in her seat. But really, it wasn’t that much worse than the Knight Bus, and at the end of the ride awaited something that Harriet had never had: her own money. She’d been worried, initially, about how she was to pay for robes and a cauldron and a wand and a telescope and all the other things that witches apparently needed, since pigs would fly before the Dursleys gave her two coins to rub together. But McGonagall and Pomfrey had set her mind at ease. “I don’t know exactly how full your parents’ coffers were,” McGonagall had said, a soft note entering her voice as it always did when Lily and James Potter were mentioned, “But they were comfortable. Your grandfather invented a popular hair-care potion, which your father, to be frank, could have benefitted from using once in a while.” McGonagall was quite certain that the Potters had left behind enough to support Harriet through her school years. And indeed, the pile of coins— gold, silver, bronze— in vault 687 more than confirmed her theory. But there was far more to the contents of the Potter vault than wizard gold. While McGonagall sorted a modest amount of coins into the moneybag that the goblin upstairs had given them, Harriet wandered deeper into the vault, feeling once again as though she didn’t know where to look. There were stacks of books— Harriet’s eyes, keen at picking out shapes and colors even if she was rubbish at seeing details from far away, landed on a copy of Architectural Wonders of Magical Britain. An entire wall was lined with paintings, stacked several canvases deep and grumbling discontentedly. And near the back of the vault, on a small table that seemed to have been built specifically for this purpose, sat a battered red leather suitcase. 

“Most likely your grandmother’s jewelry.” Harriet jumped, having been too busy looking around to notice McGonagall appearing at her side. “Unfortunately your parents didn’t keep many possessions in Gringotts— mostly art and valuables.” McGonagall paused, the corners of her mouth pinching slightly as if she felt that there was something she should say or perhaps do, but wasn’t entirely sure how to go about saying or doing it. After what seemed to be a brief battle with herself, she continued, “Would you like to have a look?” 

“Er,” Harriet began, unsure as to what exactly she’d do with old jewelry. But she did want to open the suitcase, she found, if only because it would mean that she was touching something that her parents, and possible even her grandparents, had touched. “Yes, please, Professor.” 

“Put your hand on the suitcase,” McGonagall instructed. “The old families tend to charm these sorts of things to recognize heirs. And ‘Potter’ may not be a Sacred Twenty-Eight name, but it’s old enough.” Harriet lay her right hand gently in the center of the suitcase’s lid, pressing down ever-so-slightly with her palm. She heard a small click, as if an internal mechanism had been triggered, and then pulled her hand away as the top of the suitcase rose— and rose, and rose. Several levels unfolded from the suitcase, each level boasting four drawers with maroon velvet fronts and small gold handles. Harriet stared at the drawers, uncertain, and McGonagall made a little “well, get on with it” gesture. Harriet chose a drawer at random and pulled it open. 

She nearly shut it immediately from sheer surprise. When she had heard the phrase “your grandmother’s jewelry,” Harriet had conjured up a mental image of the string of sensible faux-pearls that Aunt Petunia wore to church, perhaps paired with that brooch with the little cross on it if she was feeling particularly zealous. She had not pictured what simply had to be a heretofore-unheard-of selection of the royal crown jewels. Those… those are real diamonds. And sapphires. And rubies. And emeralds. And… that’s it, I’ve run out of jewels that I know. McGonagall, meanwhile, had taken a bit of an interest, although she appeared to be trying to pretend that she hadn’t. 

“Oh, Euphemia’s bracelet!” Her gaze had landed on a thick gold bangle inlaid with rubies and emeralds. She turned to Harriet. “Your grandmother brought this with her from India when she moved to England, you know. And your father stole it from her over winter holidays his fifth year to give to Lily Evans. He said it set off her eyes. She threw it at his head. She was horrified once she realized it was ancestral family jewelry, of course. She was nearly in tears apologizing to Euphemia about it.” 

“She threw it at his head?” Harriet was both aghast and overcome with the urge to giggle. 

“And then she wore it to their wedding.” McGonagall smiled, looking a little misty about the eyes. Harriet made to close the drawer, also smiling, but then something caught her eye. Behind the gold bangle, nearly covered by a thick, ropy diamond necklace, was a piece of jewelry that didn’t look like it belonged. Before she could analyze the urge she felt to pull it out, Harriet was already reaching into the drawer and scooping it up. 

The bracelet in her hand was not made of gold, or even silver. It was a thin, simple leather cord strung with tiny jet beads that had been carved into miniscule flowers. Harriet loved it instantly, felt a bone-deep kinship with it. She held it up wordlessly, a question for McGonagall in her eyes. 

“Your mother’s,” McGonagall confirmed. All of the mistiness was gone from her expression. If anything, she looked a little way as she eyed the bracelet. “It was a gift from a friend. First year. She wore it constantly.” Without another word, Harriet fastened the bracelet around her left wrist. “It suits you,” McGonagall said simply, although she still looked a little uncomfortable. “Now, come along. We’ve much more to do before the afternoon is out.” 

Chapter Text

Harriet’s visit to Ollivanders was both uncomfortable and somewhat baffling, but she was nonethless pleased as punch when she left the dusty shop with her very own wand, composed of holly wood with a phoenix feather core (“Its brother gave you that scar,” said Mr. Ollivander. “Yes thank you, Mr. Ollivander,” said McGonagall). The rest of their shopping passed in a whirlwind of magical textbooks and smelly potions ingredients, and finally there was nothing left to do but visit Madam Malkin’s Robes For All Occasions to purchase Harriet’s Hogwarts uniform. They had already visited another wizarding clothier, Twilfitt and Tatting, in order to purchase Harriet some simple robes to supplement her sole shabby Muggle outfit, but only Madam Malkin’s outfitted Hogwarts students. 

“I’m going to get Poppy some more tea,” McGonagall said when they had arrived outside of Madam Malkin’s shop. She nodded her head at the storefront across the lane, which had a sign in the window proclaiming that it sold ‘Tea Leaves For Wizards of Taste and Distinction’. “She’s quite particular about it. I’ll be back shortly; wait here if you finish your fitting.” Harriet nodded her agreement, then turned on her heel and pushed, somewhat nervously, into the shop, accompanied by the jingle of a bell on the door. 

Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve. “Hogwarts, dear?” she said, when Harriet started to speak. “Got the lot here— a 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 pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harriet on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over her head and began to put it to the right length.

“Hullo,” said the boy, “Hogwarts too?”

“Yes,” said Harriet.

“My father’s next door buying my books and Mother’s up the street looking at wands,” said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. “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 think I’ll bully father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.” 

Harriet might have been reminded of Dudley, had Dudley ever developed a fondness for hearing himself speak. As it was, this boy seemed much more accustomed to using words to get his way than using fists to achieve the same objective.  

“Have you got your own broom?” the boy went on.

“No,” said Harriet.

“Play Quidditch at all?” 

“No,” Harriet said again. She had heard McGonagall wax poetic about the sport, which the Deputy Headmistress had apparently played in her youth. It was a source of contention between McGonagall, who as far as Harriet could tell was just short of being Quidditch-mad, and Pomfrey, who despaired of the brutal sport and all of the injuries it apparently caused. For her part, Harriet had never been one to follow sports, but she couldn’t deny that any game played on flying broomsticks had to beat Muggle football in spades, and therefore was quite keen to try it herself. “I’d like to try, though.” 

“I do,” said the boy, more or less ignoring Harriet’s answer. “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 Harriet for a third time, starting to get a little bit annoyed. “How would I know that without being Sorted?” In the back of her mind, Harriet fervently thanked McGonagall and Pomfrey for all of the information they’d given her about Hogwarts and the wizarding world at large over the past week. She could only imagine how foolish she’d feel in a situation such as this one, if she hadn’t been at least slightly prepared for it. 

Harriet’s response seemed to have knocked the boy slightly out of his monologue-posing-as-a-conversation. He frowned at her. “Well, I know I’ll be in Slytherin, all our family have been.” He gave a haughty sniff that Harriet found ridiculous, and then his lips curled into a smirk. “Imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” 

That was enough for Harriet, who knew quite well that Poppy Pomfrey had been a Hufflepuff in her own school days. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” she said, struggling to keep her tone mild and disinterested, as if she couldn’t care a whit what this boy had to say. “Hufflepuffs are supposed to be nice.” 

The boy gaped at her, his mouth hanging open. It made him look much less pointy, Harriet noted with satisfaction. “You— you can’t just—” 

“Stay still, please, Mr. Malfoy,” said Madam Malkin’s assistant, who was having difficulty pinning the boy’s robes. 

“I’ll tell my father when he comes back,” hissed the boy, Malfoy. “And he’ll have words for your parents!” 

Harriet tried, and failed, to imagine anyone’s father intimidating McGonagall. “My parents are dead. Tell your father good luck.” 

“All done, dear,” Madam Malkin said to Harriet, clearly uncomfortable. She worked a lot faster than her assistant, and it didn’t hurt that Harriet had actually stood still. 

“Dead? What’s your surname?”

This, of course, is when McGonagall entered the shop, carrying a parcel which she shrank and stowed away in her robes as she pulled Harriet’s moneybag from a pocket. “Ah, you’re finished? Excellent timing, Miss Potter.” She turned to Madam Malkin with several coins in her hand. “Costs haven’t changed since last term, have they?” 

“Potter?” The Malfoy boy’s face, already pale, went sheet-white. “Are you— Harriet Potter?” 

Ah, yes. Harriet had quite forgotten that she was famous. 

McGonagall frowned at Harriet, and then at Malfoy. “Are you Lucius’s boy?” 

“And mine,” came a voice from the doorway. Harriet spun around to see a jaw-droppingly beautiful blonde witch in the doorway, a witch who was poised, elegant, and clearly the rude boy’s mother. “Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,” the woman said slowly, “How… unexpected.” 

“Mistress Malfoy.” McGonagall’s voice was cold. “A pleasure.” 

Mrs. Malfoy stared at McGonagall for a moment, then moved her gaze to her son, and finally to Harriet. Puzzle pieces seemed to fall into place behind the witch’s placid expression. “Draco,” she addressed her son, “Say hello to Deputy Headmistress McGonagall. She’ll be your Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts.” 

“Hullo,” Draco muttered, clearly still thrown off by Harriet. Mrs. Malfoy raised a pale eybrow, and Draco flushed. “How do you do, Professor McGonagall?” 

McGonagall seemed to be wrestling down dislike as she faced Draco. Harriet would have bet all of the gold in her Gringotts vault that McGonagall was trying not to transfer a dislike she clearly felt for Mrs. Malfoy (and likely her husband as well) to Draco without cause. “Quite well, Mr. Malfoy, thank you. I look forward to seeing you at Hogwarts.” 

Draco gave McGonagall a stiff little bow that looked quite unnatural for an eleven-year-old, and Harriet suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. 

“Come along, Miss Potter,” McGonagall said. “Madam Malkin, please post the finished robes to my address.” 

“Bye,” Harriet said to Draco, choosing not to address his mother, who, after all, had not addressed her. “I’ll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose."

And that, she concluded, was certainly going to be interesting. 

Chapter Text

It was Madam Pomfrey who accompanied Harriet to King’s Cross Station on the first of September, as McGonagall had left the farm for Hogwarts some days earlier. Usually, Pomfrey told Harriet, the Deputy Headmistress would have returned to her post in early August, but “One must adjust to circumstances.” This last she said with a kind smile in Harriet’s direction, indicating that no negative feelings were being harbored over the delay. 

And indeed, it had seemed to Harriet throughout the entirety of the two summer months she’d spent in the care of the two women that neither McGonagall nor Pomfrey harbored any negative feelings toward her whatsoever. This was both a strange and welcome change of affairs after ten years with the Dursleys, and Harriet was sorry to leave her newfound abode, even for the assured charms of Hogwarts. She had amassed lovely memories here by the heaping handful: tending the sheep with Poppy, brisk morning walks over the heath with McGonagall, and poring over wizarding tomes with them both in the evenings. The two women had even bought Harriet a birthday gift (without needing to be told when her birthday was): a beautiful snowy owl that a delighted Harriet immediately christened ‘Hedwig,’ after a figure she came across in a wizarding history book. In short, she was much comforted by the fact that she would see both Pomfrey and McGonagall at Hogwarts, albeit in a more formal setting. 

At King’s Cross, Pomfrey pulled Harriet through the brick barrier between platforms nine and ten with a good-natured tug. Much more comfortable with magic after a couple of visits to Diagon Alley, Harriet still found herself blinking at the sheer amount of space that Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters occupied when there had been nothing to see before but the narrow barrier. And the train— oh, and the train! The Hogwarts Express rose in front of Harriet like a gleaming black-and-scarlet monument, cheery-looking in a way that only a well-tended steam engine could be. 

“Now, remember,” Pomfrey said as she secured a buckle on Harriet’s new school trunk, “Don’t be surprised if people act a bit… odd, at first, when you introduce yourself.” 

“Accidental infant fame,” Harriet said, a little glumly. “Right.” 

Pomfrey enveloped her in a hug. “Chin up, then, dearie. It won’t matter as much as you think it will.” 

Somehow, Harriet doubted that very much. But she smiled at Pomfrey nonetheless, and then hauled her luggage towards an open train car door. She was beginning to wonder at the logistics of maneuvering her trunk, which was awkward even if not particularly heavy, up the narrow metal steps and onto the train, when a voice from behind her offered, “Do you need a hand, young lady?” 

Harriet turned. In front of her stood a family of three— Muggles, she guessed, as they all wore attire that would have blended in nicely in an ordinary part of London. Right, McGonagall had explained this. Some witches and wizards were born of non-magical parents; McGonagall herself had a Muggle father. It seemed as though the girl standing before her came from an all-Muggle family. 

It was the girl’s father who had offered to assist Harriet with her trunk, and she smiled and nodded at him gratefully. “That would be great, thank you.” The kind Muggle man deftly hauled Harriet’s trunk, as well as that of his own daughter, up the steps and onto the Hogwarts Express. Harriet, left only with Hedwig’s cage, took the opportunity to study, from the corner of her eye, the girl who would be her new classmate. She was was taller than Harriet by a couple of inches, and her skin was several shades darker than Harriet’s own. She had warm brown eyes and rather bushy dark brown curls. Harriet liked something about her immediately, and that liking only increased when the girl, with no introduction or other lead-in, asked “Where are your parents? Are they magical? You’ve got the clothes for it.” 

“Hermione, dear,” the girl’s mother said, affection coloring the chastisement, “Consider waiting five minutes after meeting someone before you begin the interrogation.” Hermione’s cheeks darkened, but Harriet only smiled. She appreciated the other girl’s frank curiosity, so different from the bored, self-satisfied way that Draco Malfoy had questioned her in Madam Malkin’s.

“It’s all right; I don’t mind. My parents were magical, but I didn’t grow up with them. I’m pretty new to all of this.” 

Hermione looked as though she wanted to ask further questions, but after sneaking a quick look at her mother, said only “So am I. I’m Hermione, by the way.” She stuck out a hand, looking for all the world like a very serious Muggle businessman. 

“Harry,” Harriet replied, shaking Hermione’s proffered hand. She’d decided on the appellation earlier, liking the bit of distance that a nickname put between her and the spectacle of Famous Harriet Potter. 

Hermione’s father reappeared, cheerfully pantomiming the wiping of imaginary sweat from his brow. “Well, that’s the luggage sorted. Third compartment on the left, ladies.” 

“You girls stick together,” Hermione’s mother added, reaching out to adjust her daughter’s collar. “It’s good to have a friend in a new place.” Hermione smiled at Harriet, almost shyly, as if she were as unused to friendship as Harriet was, but very much wanted to give it a try. Harriet grinned back. Maybe Pomfrey had been right. Maybe being Famous Harriet Potter wouldn’t matter after all. 

Chapter Text

Minerva McGonagall couldn’t remember when, if ever, she had been this eager for a Sorting ceremony to begin. Of course, in her role as a professor, and then later as Deputy Headmistress, she had always put on a good face for the students and other staff— not that she needed to be the face of first-day cheer; that’s why they had Albus, for Merlin’s sake. But Minerva had been careful to always give her full attention to the first years and the Sorting, even when tempted to let her mind wander to lesson plans or Transfiguration theory or how many hours of sleep she and Poppy would be able to get before some inevitable first night incident demanded her wife’s presence in the infirmary. It was important— nay, essential— that each and every new student knew that her focus was on them. 

But this year was different. This year she had something of a personal stake in the game. She wanted to chide herself for thinking that way, but it was a lost cause. After Harriet Potter’s stay with her, she couldn’t help but feel a nearly debilitating amount of fondness for the girl, and was looking forward to watching her sort Gryffindor just like Lily and James— and like herself. 

Minerva was roused from her musings by the unmistakable thump of Hagrid’s large feet and the rising babble of voices arriving in the Entrance Hall: young, eager, nervous. The first years had arrived. 

* * * 

Harriet and Hermione kept close to Hagrid as they took their first steps into Hogwarts Castle. Pomfrey had been right; Harriet had realized as much as soon as the boats had rounded the bend and allowed her to gaze upon the school for the first time— no illustration could have prepared her for this. 

Draco Malfoy, to Harriet’s annoyance, was right behind them. He had seen fit to stick to her like a bad smell upon their departure from the train, where he had invited himself (as well as a couple of thuggish boys called Crabbe and Goyle) into the compartment she was sharing with Hermione and two first-year boys named Ron and Neville. He’d only made himself scarce once Ron’s pet rat caused an uproar by biting Goyle’s finger, and now he was haunting Harriet’s steps, pestering her with rude remarks in a haughty but whinging tone. She did her level best to ignore him entirely, focusing her attention on Hermione’s increasingly anxious muttering about the castle and the Sorting ceremony. She’d been set off by a rather unfortunate comment that Ron had made about the possibility of troll-wrestling as a Sorting method, and seemed to be trying to reassure herself that this couldn’t possibly be the case by reciting every fact that might point in another direction.  

“I’m sure we don’t have to fight a troll,” Harriet said for probably the third or fourth time. “I think Professor McGonagall or Madam Pomfrey would have warned me if the Sorting was going to be that dangerous.” For all of Hermione’s star-struck awe upon learning that Harriet had spent her summer with an actual Hogwarts professor, this didn’t calm her. Harriet was a little concerned that her new friend might be on the verge of an anxiety attack. Luckily, before it could get out of hand, the Entrance Hall doors were opening, and the first years were greeted by none other than Professor McGonagall herself. Harriet grinned up at her, and could swear that she was rewarded with a twitch upward of the regal woman’s stern mouth. 

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. The Sorting ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.” Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville’s cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron’s smudged nose. Harriet bit back a snicker, sure that she was the only student in the hall who could see the spark of amusement in the Deputy Headmistress’s eyes as she took stock of the first years’ shuffling to fix their uneven clothes and mussed hair. 

“Now, form a line,” McGonagall said, after giving them a moment, “and follow me.” And with that, the huge double doors behind her swung open on their own, bracketing her like wings and allowing the light and noise of the Great Hall to wash over the first years as they followed their professor forward. 

Harriet had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, ghosts shone misty silver. Harriet looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. She heard Hermione whisper, “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History.” 

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn’t simply open on to the heavens. 

Harriet forced herself to wrench her attention from the enchanted ceiling, turning away from her classmates to sneak a look at the staff table. Pomfrey, who was seated between a short witch whose hat appeared to be growing something, and an empty seat that Harriet assumed belonged to McGonagall, gave her an encouraging smile and a wink. Farther down the long table, nearly at the end, sat Professor Severus Snape, glowering into his goblet as if he were trying to make the other inhabitants of the hall vanish through sheer force of will. Harriet was curious about him— couldn’t help but be, really, after the way he’d stormed Privet Drive with McGonagall and Hagrid, held the Dursleys at wandpoint and exchanged baffling words with Aunt Petunia. But her gaze slid from the dour black-clad professor to the man next to him, who was spindly and nervous-looking, and sporting a bright purple turban. No sooner had Harriet’s glance landed on him, then the scar on her forehead seemed to burst with searing pain. Harriet winced, her hand flying to cover the scar as if she could smother the ache if she just applied enough pressure. At the same moment, Snape’s gaze fell upon her, his eyes narrowing. Harriet ducked and spun around, facing forward once more. That, she thought, would require further looking into. But for now, McGonagall was approaching the first years with a four-legged stool and a battered wizard’s hat, and that seemed like quite enough to be thinking about at the moment. Besides, the pain was fading as quickly as it had come. 

Harriet was proved correct about needing to focus on what McGonagall was doing when the ancient hat she was carrying opened a rip near its brim and starting singing about the four Hogwarts houses. Regardless of everything she’d seen so far, sometimes magic was just so… weird. Hermione, meanwhile, was visibly relaxing at the hat’s announcement that they only had to try it on to be Sorted. 

“Abbott, Hannah!” McGonagall called out, and that was it— no more speculation. The Sorting had begun. 

* * *

Severus, as usual, watched the Sorting ceremony with distaste, though not with disinterest. He always took careful stock of the new crop of Slytherin students, listening for familiar surnames and keeping his sharp eyes trained on any visible strengths or weaknesses. And this year, of course, there were his two charges to observe. He spotted Draco’s sleek blond head in the bobbing sea of first years easily enough, and noted, with a complete absence of surprise, that he was sticking rather close to the Potter girl (who, for her part, had all but glued herself to a bushy-haired girl who seemed to be keeping up a persistent mutter). Of course Draco would seek out Potter— with Lucius’s influence, the boy could hardly help being drawn to fame and fortune. Severus found himself wondering vaguely how an interaction between the two children might have played out, but he banished the distracting thought when Draco was called forward to be sorted. 

The hat hardly touched Draco’s head before calling out “SLYTHERIN!” in its usual bellowing voice. Severus relaxed imperceptibly. He hadn’t truly doubted that Draco would sort Slytherin— again, Lucius’s influence— but one never quite knew. If he had ended up in Ravenclaw (which was of course the only other way this could have gone), it would have made it harder for Severus to keep his promise to Narcissa and watch over the boy. Merlin knew he wasn’t looking forward to juggling such a situation with Potter. Then again, he wasn’t looking forward to anything having to do with Potter. 

He did, however, have to admit that his expectations as far as Harriet Potter was concerned had not been… one hundred percent correct. From what he’d seen at Petunia’s home, it was undeniable that the girl was anything but spoiled. Not that this meant anything about Potter’s character as a whole. Not that this moved Severus in any way, or made him think about things he thought he’d long since buried. No, that would be ridiculous. 

But now the girl in question was being called forward by Minerva, and the occupants of the Great Hall seemed unsure whether excited whispering or reverent silence was the appropriate reaction, and therefore settled for a mix of the two: a heavy hush that was broken by intermittent bursts of feverish chatter. Potter’s new friend, Severus noted absently, had gone to Gryffindor, and Potter herself shot anxious glances at that table as she approached Minerva and sat down on the stool. Severus stiffened without quite meaning to as Minerva lowered the Sorting Hat onto the head of the Girl Who Lived, waiting for the damning word that he knew had to be coming. 

There was a pause, the silence in the Great Hall now absolutely deafening. And then— 

“GRYFFINDOR!” roared the Sorting Hat, and yes, that was it, what Severus (and probably everyone else) had been expecting and waiting for, and they could all relax now, they could move on, except— 

“AND SLYTHERIN!” 

Chapter Text

Harriet might not have known a lot about the wizarding world after ten years of having it witheld from her, but it was abundantly clear to her that something had gone very, very wrong.

“Not wrong,” said the Sorting Hat in her ear, “Simply… unique.” But Harriet had gone into something resembling shock, and was in no fit state to argue semantics with a piece of sentient headwear. This felt like the kind of nightmare she’d often had when she was younger, the kind of nightmare where she was frozen in front of masses of people, usually at her primary school, missing her trousers. Now, slowly, Harriet glanced down— just in case— but her Hogwarts robes fell plenty long to conceal everything should her uniform skirt mysteriously disappear. That being dealt with, Harriet cut her eyes sideways, trying to get a look at Professor McGonagall’s face without actually moving. But all she got was an eyeful of tartan for her efforts.

She redirected her attention to the hat. Shut up, she thought wildly, That’s not actually helpful at all! The last thing she needed was anything else setting her apart from the crowd. If you want to be useful, take it back!

The hat chuckled, the sound low and warm. “I’m afraid we’re quite beyond that now. You’re going to do great things, Potter. Now, hop along.”

Dazed, Harriet slid from the stool and directly into the waiting hands of Professor McGonagall, who swept the Sorting Hat from Harriet’s head and looked at it grimly, holding it out at arm’s length by the brim. Harriet looked up at her pleadingly, but without any real idea what she was hoping for.

“Go sit at the edge of the Gryffindor table,” McGonagall ordered quietly, “Next to Miss Granger.” Harriet nodded, thankful for both the existence of the instructions and their contents. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d feel had she been directed to situate herself next to Draco Malfoy. But as she made her way towards the sea of Gryffindors, Hermione among them like a beacon of hope, she couldn’t help but notice that not all the faces there were friendly. Twin boys who she recognized from the train as a pair of Ron Weasley’s older brothers had begun chanting “We got Potter! We got Potter!” But meanwhile, some Gryffindor students looked downright mistrustful. Harriet slid, shaking slightly, onto the end of the bench that Hermione was sitting on.

“Harry,” Hermione hissed, “That’s never happened before. Not ever.”

“Just my luck,” Harriet muttered. She looked up towards the Head Table, steadfastly avoiding the eyes of her fellow students. Professor McGonagall had gotten the Sorting going again, calling “Thomas, Dean” up to the stool. Behind her, some of the teachers had politely refocused their attention on Dean, but not all of them. The old wizard with elaborate robes and a long gray beard, who Harriet knew from context to be Headmaster Dumbledore, was peering at her with such a carefully placid expression that it simply had to be a front for whirling thoughts. Professor Snape, meanwhile, was staring at her with narrowed eyes, his thin lips pressed together in an expression that might have been anything from anger to distaste to puzzlement. Suddenly, Harriet remembered a salient piece of information: Professor Snape was the Head of Slytherin, just like McGonagall was the Head of Gryffindor. Harriet wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She had questions for Snape, had done since his exchange with Aunt Petunia, but he didn’t seem the type who would want to give her answers.

The Sorting ended, and Ron Weasley joined Harriet and Hermione at the end of the Gryffindor table, glaring at the twins as they cat-called him. But before Harriet could do more than greet Ron, Headmaster Dumbledore stood up and the Great Hall fell silent.

“Welcome,” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!”

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harriet didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

“That was… different,” Hermione said.

“My brothers always said Dumbledore was a bit mental,” Ron added thoughtfully— or, as thoughtfully as he could with his mouth full of chicken. Harriet hadn’t even noticed, but the gleaming gold dishes on all five tables in the Hall had simply filled with food, any type of food that she could reasonably imagine being part of a grand feast: platters of chicken legs, hams, roasts, potatoes in every conceivable form, steaming tureens of soup, and piles upon piles of roasted vegetables. Hermione muttered something about salad and began filling her plate with asparagus and chicken breast, while Ron seemed to be making it his life’s mission to consume a hearty serving of every meat and potato available. Harriet served herself a bowl of pea soup and buttered a couple of rolls. The food was delicious, but she had a hard time concentrating on anything other than the Sorting Hat’s words, or the way that several figures at the Head Table kept turning their gazes upon her, muttering all the while.

It was much the same throughout pudding, although Harriet did her level best to allow the delightful flavors of her treacle tart to burst on her tongue without being spoilt by worry. All around her, the conversation varied from homework (most of the new Gryffindor girls) to families and blood status (all of the new Gryffindor boys). Luckily for her, no one in her immediate vicinity seemed to be discussing what had transpired during her Sorting, although there was no shortage of odd looks thrown her way. Harriet was able to bow her head close to Hermione’s and discuss the issue quietly with her new friend.

“So the Hat has really never put someone in two Houses? Not ever?”

Hermione shook her head resolutely, curls bouncing and expression set with the kind of absolute certainty that meant Hogwarts, A History would back up whatever she said next. “Never. There are Hatstalls, of course, when the Hat takes a while to decide— technically I think I might have been one; it said I’d do well in Ravenclaw too— but it always settles on one House in the end.” She furrowed her brow. “Until today, I suppose.”

Harriet swallowed tightly, her mouth suddenly feeling dry. “Do you think it’s because… because of the ‘Girl-Who-Lived’ stuff?”

Hermione looked thoughtful. “I haven’t really read enough about you to know for sure. You were mentioned in those books I told you about on the train, of course, but no one knows much about how you were able to defeat You-Know-Who. I think it’s one of the least-understood phenomena in wizarding history, actually.”

Harriet groaned and laid her head down on the table.

“You-Know-Who was in Slytherin,” Ron said, sliding clumsily into the conversation. “Maybe you absorbed all his powers, Harry!”

But before there could be any further speculation about that, the pudding dishes vanished and all eyes in the Great Hall turned towards Professor Dumbledore, who had gotten to his feet and was delicately tapping a spoon against his goblet.

“Ahem— just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.”

The bulletins, regulations, and reminders that followed were certainly unlike any start-of-term notices that Harriet had ever heard before— the third floor corridor was off-limits if you didn’t want to ‘die a painful death?’ Really?— but even talk of a Forbidden Forest and hexing in hallways couldn’t distract her from her own predicament. In just a few minutes, the new students would be following their prefects back to their House dormitories for the evening, and Harriet had no idea where she was supposed to go. Should she simply stay with Hermione and the other Gryffindors? Seek out Professor McGonagall for further instruction? Luckily, as Dumbledore ended his speech and everyone in the Great Hall rumbled to their feet, her question was answered by the arrival of Ron’s older brother Percy, a fifth-year Gryffindor prefect, at her elbow.

“Miss Potter, please remain behind and make your way toward the Head Table,” he said, peering down at her distractedly through his horn-rimmed glasses while clearly also trying to keep an eye on the other first years. “The Headmaster would like a word with you.”

Chapter Text

Minerva was unsurprised that Severus remained behind without a word as the denizens of Hogwarts exited the Great Hall for the night. Before their encounter with Harriet’s Muggle relatives, she might have said he was lingering to protest the absurdity that a Potter could have anything whatsoever to do with Slytherin House. But after seeing the way he’d taken Petunia and Vernon Dursley to task, both verbally and with a couple of particularly mean-spirited hexes, she had to wonder if he stayed for the same reason she did— an honest desire to get to the bottom of this mess, and do the best they could by a child the world had failed so badly.

She wasn’t entirely sure how Albus had been able to signal to Percy Weasley so quickly, but then Albus’s ways weren’t hers to know, so she was also unsuprised when she saw the fifth-year ushering Harriet towards the Head Table. When Percy turned around to see to the rest of his charges, Minerva stood up, made her way around the end of the table, and met the girl halfway.

Harriet was pale and quite clearly nervous, but she managed to smile up at Minerva nonetheless. “Hi, Professor. Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”

Minerva returned her smile. The child really was extraordinarily good-natured. “Yes, this is quite a to-do, isn’t it? Don’t fret, Miss Potter. We’ll soon have it all sorted out.”

At the Head Table, Albus and Severus were waiting with similarly unreadable expressions— although of course, Albus’s ‘unreadable’ was that damned twinkling placidity, and Severus’s was his habitual glower. The other teachers and staff had disbanded, but Poppy was hovering awkwardly by the nearest doorway. Minerva gave her a small nod, and her wife slipped away. Minerva would fill her in on everything later, when there was indeed some information to impart.

“Harriet, my dear girl, it’s wonderful to see you looking so well.” Albus gave the girl a warm, grandfatherly smile. How he could be at once so solemn and so cheerful was anyone’s guess, and Minerva was certain she’d never figure it out.

Harriet gave the Headmaster a shy nod. “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

Albus waved a long-fingered hand. “Oh, we’re old friends, you and I.” Harriet looked a little doubtful at that, but resumed her look of polite, if somewhat nervous, expectation.

“Headmaster,” said Severus, unruffled as the Black Lake on a still day, “Might I suggest that we move this conversation to a more private venue?”

“Of course, Severus. Let us all withdraw to my office.”

Minerva, obviously, had been in Albus’s office almost as often as her own by this point— particularly since the discovery of Harriet’s circumstances and the beginning of Albus’s Philosopher’s Stone scheme. She was well aware, however, of the effect that the looming gargoyle, rising circular stair, and two-story room full of whirring, shifting silver gadgetry could have on an already awe-struck and stressed eleven-year-old. She squeezed Harriet’s shoulder as the girl peered around in wonder, distracted from the issue at hand.

Albus, predictably, offered everyone lemon sherbets the moment he was in place behind his desk.

“Now,” he said, flicking his wand and conjuring a few armchairs, “Harriet, I’m sure one of your new classmates has alerted you to the fact that your situation is a bit unique.”

Harriet’s face twisted up at the word ‘unique,’ although she hastened to conceal her expression. Minerva couldn’t blame her. The thought of standing out any more than she already does must be sheer anathema to the poor child.

“Yes, sir,” Harriet answered slowly. “Hermione said that this has never happened before.”

“Miss Granger is quite correct. The Hat generally contents itself with picking out a single House for each new student. Therefore, it must have a very good reason for insisting that you be dually Sorted.”

“Headmaster,” said Severus again, as if he couldn’t start a sentence without addressing Albus by title, “Surely you don’t mean to encourage this lunacy. A Hogwarts student can’t possibly be in two Houses at once! Clearly that demented headpiece is losing whatever dubious mental faculties it claims to possess.” Privately, Minerva thought that Severus had the right idea, but it was no matter: Albus had already made up his mind.

“Be that as it may, I’ve conferred with the Hat and it steadfastly refuses to place Harriet in either Gryffindor or Slytherin alone.”

And just when did he get the time to ‘confer’ with the Hat? Minerva thought, casting a suspicious eye over Albus. I’ve had my eye on that troublemaker since the Sorting! And by ‘troublemaker,’ she certainly didn’t mean the Sorting Hat.

“Then put her in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw for all the good it will do!” Severus’s expression still made Minerva think of the Black Lake, but now it called to mind the way that body of water looked when the giant squid was having a temper tantrum. It was worth noting, she thought, that Severus had steadfastly refused to so much as glance in the direction of Harriet Potter from the moment she’d approached the Head Table.

Minerva shook her head at her colleague’s utter transparency and chimed in for the first time. “Clearly Miss Potter does not belong in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, Professor Snape.”

“Then where,” growled Severus, “in Salazar’s name are we going to put her?”

“I’m surprised at you, Severus,” Dumbledore answered, brows raised as if he really was capable of a reaction such as surprise, as if he wasn’t frustratingly all-knowing. “We’re going to put her exactly where she’s been Sorted.”

* * *

Severus wondered if the first day of term was too late to put in his notice. Apparently everyone present (senescent Sorting Hats included) had completely lost the plot.

“My mistake,” he said icily. “Surely that will be quite simple to pull off. Gryffindor and Slytherin. Why not just merge the Houses and be done with it?”

Minerva shot him a quelling glance. “How, exactly, do we go about honoring Miss Potter’s Sorting, Headmaster?”

Dumbledore, damn him, steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him, looking pleased. Severus was suddenly and horribly suspicious that he had planned the whole thing. If anyone could talk Godric Gryffindor’s blasted hat into doing their bidding, it would be Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. But given that the subject of this spectacle was Harriet Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived-To-Make-Severus-Regret-All-His-Life-Decisions, it was just as likely that this really was a once-in-several-centuries fluke. Which, Severus wondered, would be worse?

“We’ll have to divide between rooming and academics, I think,” the Headmaster mused, almost as if to himself. “That’s the most logical place to make the split. Points are easily handled… I dare say Quidditch could become an issue, but we’ll step through that Floo when we come to it…”

“Sir?” The inquiring voice was tentative, but not quavering. Severus had nearly forgotten that the girl was in the room, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the conversation was centered on her. Potter was sitting up very straight in her Dumbledore-provided armchair, worrying a sherbet lemon between her fingers like some sort of talisman. Her fringe, abominably long, fell in her eyes even though there was no downward tilt to the set of her chin. “Would you mind explaining? What do you mean, ‘the split?’”

Well. A valid question, and not at all insolently put. A bit awkwardly phrased, perhaps, but the child was only eleven.

“Ah, yes, do forgive me, Harriet.” Dumbledore smiled at Potter. “When you are as old as I, you may find that you talk to yourself upon occasion. Most simply put, I believe that in order to fulfill your dual Sorting, you will live within one House and take classes with the other. In the event that you lose or gain House points, half of the balance will be awarded to or taken from Slytherin, and the other half from Gryffindor. Meals will be taken at whatever table you wish, as the House tables are really more of a suggestion than anything else. An elegant solution, if I do say so myself.”

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, looking pleased, as if he hadn’t just spouted several sentences of pure and utter nonsense. Minerva, meanwhile, somehow managed to look both unsurprised by their employer’s antics and as if she’d been cudgeled in the knees with a Beater’s bat. Her expression, in summation, mirrored Severus’s own inner state. Potter, for her part, took the news solemnly.

“All right,” she said, her voice slow and not quite trusting. “So I’ll go to Gryffindor to sleep and take my classes with the Slytherins?”

“Not quite, my dear girl.” At the Headmaster’s words, Severus’s heart lodged itself somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. Surely Dumbledore wasn’t suggesting…? “At present, there are five Gryffindor first-year girls besides yourself. Slytherin, however, has only four other first-year girls. The best use of dormitory space would be for you to live in Slytherin House, and follow the academic schedule of your Gryffindor classmates. Of course, the two Houses will overlap in some classes, and then you’ll be able to learn with all your Housemates at once!” Dumbledore beamed as if this were the greatest news that anyone could possibly hope for.

Severus had to restrain himself from grabbing the old man and shaking him by the shoulders. Just what was Dumbledore playing at? As a magical castle, Hogwarts itself was more than capable of expanding or contracting a dormitory room to suit the number of students it housed. In fact, it did so every year as the student population fluctuated. There was no earthly reason for Potter to sleep in the dungeons— in fact, given that several of Severus’s students came from loyal Death Eater families, there was every reason to keep her away.

“Headmaster—” Severus and Minerva began to speak at the same time, and then glared at each other.

Dumbledore chuckled. “It’s lovely to see you both so in tune with each other! You will, of course, be serving jointly as Harriet’s Heads of House.”

Minerva made as if to pinch the bridge of her nose, then aborted the gesture, no doubt to spare Potter’s tender feelings.

Merlin help them all.

Chapter Text

Hermione had waited for Harriet near the Great Hall, accompanied by a stubborn Percy Weasley, who had apparently sent the rest of the Gryffindor first-years ahead with another prefect. As Harriet came into view, Hermione stepped forward and opened her mouth, but Harriet quelled her with a shake of the head, mouthing ‘later.’ The reason for this rounded the corner a mere second after Harriet, his black robes snapping dramatically behind him. Hermione closed her mouth at once, retreating towards Percy.

“Mr. Weasley,” said Professor Snape in a forbidding voice that by no means invited inquiry, “Take your charge and return to Gryffindor tower at once. I will escort Miss Potter to the dungeons.”

The… dungeons? Harriet did not like the sound of that one bit.

“Certainly, Professor Snape.” Percy inclined his head solemnly, an action that looked quite odd on a teenage boy. “Granger, with me.” Hermione gave Harriet one last, slightly helpless look, and then scurried away after Percy. Harriet found herself having to adopt a similar gait in order to keep up with Snape, who had stalked past her without hesitation when she paused.

Scampering through the labyrinthine stone corridors at Snape’s heels, Harriet saw the interior of the castle go by in brief flashes: heavy wooden doors, ornate tapestries, wizarding portraits that pointed and gossiped and moved into one another’s fames, and enormous suits of armor equipped with deadly looking maces, spears, and axes. Then came the biggest surprise— when Snape led her onto the first main Hogwarts staircase she’d encountered and it began to shift beneath her feet, rotating in a manner that felt much more haphazard and momentous than the steady, escalator-like spiral of Dumbledore’s office stairs. Harriet let out a small squeak and steadied herself against the wall before it was pulled out of her reach. They really should put railings on these things, she thought dourly, flushing as she avoided looking at Snape, who had whirled around to check on her.

Luckily, as they seemed to be venturing deeper into the bowels of the castle, the next two staircases were of the narrow, cramped, and unmoving variety, which Harriet greatly preferred. Finally, after twisting and turning through several virtually identical hallways, they arrived at a sudden stop in front of what initially appeared to be a perfectly ordinary stretch of stone wall, flanked by two iron sconces. Upon closer examination, Harriet could see a thin groove running through the stone, outlining the shape of an arched doorway.

“Fluxweed,” said Snape shortly. Apparently this was some sort of password, as the stones before them melted out of existence long enough for Snape to usher Harriet through the newly open archway.

The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. A fire was crackling under an elaborately carved mantelpiece ahead of them, and several Slytherins were silhouetted around it in tall armchairs. But what captured Harriet’s attention the most were the windows— on the opposite side of the common room, an entire wall had been replaced by floor-to-ceiling windows that appeared to look out into the Black Lake. A slightly eerie pale green light filtered through them even at this late hour, courtesy of some type of phosphorescent algae that waved gently in long strands on the other side of the glass. It would be easy, Harriet decided, to write off the Slytherin common room as ‘creepy’— but there was an odd loveliness to it as well.

“The password will change irregularly throughout the term,” Snape said, interrupting Harriet’s thoughts. “I suggest you make a habit of checking the notice board every time you leave.” He jerked his chin at a silver-framed pinboard near the common room door, already bearing official-looking notices as well as a scraps of parchment held in place by glittering black pushpins. Harriet nodded mutely.

Snape regarded her for a moment in silence, fathomless black eyes boring into hers like he was trying to see into her soul. Then he turned away sharply. “Miss Merrythought,” he barked, facing the fireplace. As if summoned from the ether, an older Slytherin girl appeared from behind an armchair. Her wavy chestnut hair was held back by a green headband, and her eyes were nearly as dark as Snape’s. After one look at the girl’s pristine uniform, Harriet self-consciously (and unsuccessfully) attempted to straighten her robes. “Show Miss Potter to the girls’ dormitory,” Snape said curtly. “And inform your fellow Prefects to report to my office at seven tomorrow morning for a start-of-term meeting.”

The older girl just nodded, beckoning to Harriet with the crook of a finger.

“Er... goodnight, Professor Snape,” said Harriet, feeling oddly as though she ought to curtsy or something. Snape just nodded, staring at her once more in that odd, intense manner, then turned on his heel and strode out into the corridor.

Harriet followed Merrythought across the common room and into a long, windowless hallway that boasted a series of recessed wooden doors, each sheltered in a little alcove. They stopped in front of the first door on the right, which had a small bronze plaque reading ‘First Year Girls.’ The door directly across from it was labeled ‘First Year Boys,’ but the door next to it didn’t have a plaque at all, only a neat square of parchment that simply read ‘Remy.’

Merrythought pushed open the first-year girls’ door and ushered Harriet inside.

“What is it, Oona?” The first-year girl who spoke was sitting on the bed closest to the door, straight-backed and cross-legged, surveying the room like a queen. She was very pale, with short, glossy black hair cut in a severe bob with a straight, thick fringe. She peered at Harriet, hazel eyes narrowed over an upturned nose. Harriet had seen her at the Sorting, of course, but couldn’t remember her name.

Merrythought— Oona, Harriet reminded herself, trying to make it stick— just gestured at Harriet as if her presence was self-explanatory, then turned and left the room without a word.

Without warning, there was a crack! and a couple of the girls shrieked. Not the girl closest to Harriet, though, who rolled her eyes and pointed at the foot of the four-poster bed across from her, where Harriet’s trunk had appeared.

“It’s just the house elves moving her things in here,” the girl said. “Honestly, Daphne, that shriek of yours could deafen dogs.”

Daphne, the violet-eyed blonde on the next bed, glared at her. “Tracey screamed too,” she retorted with a bit of a pout. “And I don’t see why you should act so superior, Pansy. We all heard you when Greg put that toad in your tea at Blaise’s birthday party.”

Pansy flushed, the color spreading over her cheeks blotchily. “I still say Blaise put him up to that,” she muttered. “Greg has never once thought of a prank on his own.” She shook her head, as if to clear all thoughts of the offending Blaise and Greg from within it, and then hopped off her bed. She was already dressed for sleep in a pair of blue silk pajamas with silver piping and a Peter Pan collar, but carried herself like she was entering a grand ball, bedecked in finery. She stuck out a hand, and Harriet shook it. “I’m Pansy Parkinson,” she said. “The loud ones are Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, and that’s Millicent Bulstrode over by the window. Can’t say I was expecting to see you down here— we all figured that even after the Sorting Hat pulled that stunt, they’d just stick you in Gryffindor and be done with it.”

“They did,” said Harriet, slightly caught off-guard by Pansy’s quick introduction and matter-of-fact manner. “I mean, they put me in both. Dumbledore said I’m to sleep here and go to classes with the Gryffindors.”

“That’s so weird,” said Tracey, peeking out from behind Daphne.

“What about your uniform?” Daphne asked curiously. “I see you’ve got two crests on your robe, but what about your ties?”

“Trust you to think about clothes at a time like this,” said Millicent.

Harriet glanced down at the front of her robe in surprise. Sure enough, there were two small embroidered crests resting just over her heart: Slytherin’s green snake and the red-and-gold lion of Gryffindor. With everything that had happened, Harriet hadn’t even noticed the crests appearing. She snuck a look at Millicent, who was the only girl present still wearing her robe. Sure enough, Millicent was sporting a single Slytherin crest.

“The robes add them after the Sorting,” Pansy said, clearly having noticed what Harriet was looking at. “Go on, look in your trunk. Daphne’s got a point about the ties.”

Harriet made her way to the bed that had been designated as hers, and crouched down at the foot of it to open her trunk. Lying neatly on top of the rest of her clothes were the two neckties she had purchased in Diagon Alley— but while the ties had originally been black with a Hogwarts coat of arms, they had now changed to match her House affiliations. One tie was striped green and silver, and the other was red and gold.

“Well, that answers that,” said Pansy, who had followed Harriet and was peering over her shoulder. “Count yourself lucky they didn’t put all the colors together on both ties. That would have looked awful.”

Suddenly, there was a loud bang! from outside the dormitory, as if someone had set off a firecracker directly in front of the door. Harriet wondered if Hogwarts was always so full of unexpected noises. Pansy marched over to the door and threw it open, placing her hands on her hips and glaring down at the sight that awaited her.

Draco Malfoy was sprawled on the stone floor, looking as though someone had punched him and laid him out flat.

“I knew it,” said Pansy, stepping out the door and aiming a kick at Draco’s shoulder. “Use your brains, Malfoy, you know you can’t get into a girls’ dorm. You’re such an idiot sometimes.”

“Sod off, Pansy,” groaned Draco, getting to his feet. “I just wanted to see if…” he trailed off as his eyes met Harriet’s over Pansy’s shoulder.

Pansy rolled her eyes again. Harriet was getting the feeling that she did that a lot. “Yes, yes, famous Harriet Potter is here. She’s half a Slytherin now, get used to her.”

Harriet, meanwhile, startled slightly at Pansy’s slightly sarcastic use of the phrase ‘famous Harriet Potter.’ “Harry,” she said quickly, turning her attention firmly away from Draco and towards Pansy. “Just call me Harry.”

Pansy grinned. “Well, Harry,” she said, slamming the dormitory door in Draco’s face without so much as another glance at him, “Welcome to Slytherin.”

Chapter Text

Harriet found Hermione first thing the next morning, at breakfast. The Great Hall was full to bursting as it had been the night before, missing only one or two teachers and perhaps a handful of older students. Breakfast was served at Hogwarts from six to nine, but it looked as though no one was interested in having a lie-in on the first day of term, not even the N.E.W.T level students who had the occasional morning free period. So seven-thirty saw the vast majority of Hogwarts students pouring tea and buttering toast at the four long House tables, uncharacteristically energetic for the hour, as the ceiling of the Great Hall beamed with sunlight in a clear blue sky.

Hermione was easy enough to spot at the Gryffindor table— she was sitting near Neville but not really with him, and her riotous curls were standing out even farther from her head than usual as she anxiously craned her neck about, clearly looking for Harriet. Harriet hurried away from her roommates, who were all settling themselves down together at one end of the Slytherin table, with a muttered excuse. But she couldn’t escape the feeling that Pansy Parkinson’s sharp gaze was following her as she moved across the hall, dodging both overexcited and half-asleep students.

“Budge over,” she said, giving Hermione a friendly nudge with her elbow. Hermione, despite having been scanning the hall for Harriet rather desperately, clearly hadn’t seen her coming, and emitted a little shriek. This startled Neville into jumping up, knocking his pumpkin juice into Ron’s lap, which made Ron flail and accidentally hit Seamus across the mouth. Across the table, Fred and George Weasley roared with laughter.

“Capital, Potter,” said one of them— Harriet couldn’t really be sure which one was which.

“Yeah, Potter, cheers!” said the other twin. “Way to make an entrance!”

Harriet flushed, ducking her head and clambering onto the bench next to Hermione. “Sorry,” she muttered, casting an eye down the bench toward the boys who’d borne the brunt of her miscalculation. Dean was howling with laughter at Seamus’s stunned expression, while Neville was blushing and stammering out apologies to a sodden Ron.

“Here, Ron,” came a brisk voice from behind them. A tall girl with dark, neatly-plaited hair, a small gold nose ring, and a Prefect’s badge had appeared nearly instantly, as if she had been summoned by a sixth sense that told her trouble was brewing. She waved her wand, cleaning and drying Ron off with two spells in quick succession. Hermione’s eyes tracked the wand movements, clearly afire with curiosity. The older girl’s gaze softened. “It’ll be a couple of years before you learn these, Hermione.”

“Where—” 

The older girl smiled slightly. “The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Four. Charms section of the library. Look up ‘Tergeo’ and ‘Assicco.’”

Hermione beamed. “Thanks, Anjali.”

Anjali turned to Harriet. “Hi Harriet, I’m Anjali Kapoor,” she said. “I’m one of the Gryffindor fifth-year prefects, along with Percy Weasley. Professor McGonagall spoke to us this morning about your special circumstances, and I know Professor Snape did the same for all of the Slytherin prefects. I just wanted to make sure you’re settling in all right.”

Harriet found herself copying Hermione’s smile, although hers was maybe a bit less dazzling. “Thanks. I’m all right, yeah.”

“No trouble in the dungeons?”

Harriet thought about this for a moment. “No, not really. The girls in my dorm all seem fine. Draco Malfoy keeps following me around, though,” she added as an afterthought.

“If he does anything to make you uncomfortable, make sure to tell a prefect,” Anjali responded. “I’ll admit that I don’t know many of the Slytherin prefects that well, but I’m in a study group with Oona Merrythought from fifth year, and you can trust her for all that she’s a bit odd. And Gemma Farley from seventh is a good sort as well— she’s Head Girl this year.” Anjali paused, seemingly trying out what she wanted to say next. “Anyway, if anyone gives you trouble because of your Sorting… you can always come to one of us. Or Professor McGonagall.”

Harriet swallowed. That was a little ominous. “D’you… d’you think anyone will? Give me trouble?”

Something in Anjali’s eyes flared. “Not if we prefects have anything to say about it,” she said grimly. “And I don’t know about Professor Snape, but Professor McGonagall’s made it pretty clear that she won’t tolerate any foolishness. It’s just that Gryffindors and Slytherins don’t always seem to be on the best of terms.” She shook her head. “Anyway, the password for the Gryffindor common room  is ‘Caput Draconis.’ Hermione can show you where the entrance is after classes. If you ever miss a password change due to not sleeping there, someone will let you know. You’re just as much a Gryffindor as the rest of us,” she finished. “So even if you’re supposed to sleep in Slytherin, both spaces are yours.”

Harriet very much appreciated the sentiment behind Anjali’s words, but she couldn’t help but wish that they weren’t necessary, and she could just be in a single House like every other Hogwarts student.

The rest of breakfast passed quickly. Out of the corner of her eye, Harriet could see the first-year Gryffindor boys giving her the occasional odd look, but no one was less than friendly. They’d all heard what Anjali said, after all. Professor McGonagall made her way down the table with a thick parchment stack of class schedules. When she reached the cluster of first-years, she slowed her steps, taking care to explain the way the schedules were set up.

Harriet and Hermione stuck together like burrs for the entirety of their first school day. All the Gryffindors seemed to have paired up without really discussing it, as they instinctively kept the same seat-mates through each successive class: Ron and Neville, Dean and Seamus, Parvati and Lavender, Fay and Sophie, and Harriet and Hermione. Hermione, it seemed, had done even more pre-term self-study than Harriet (who had paged through many of her textbooks with great curiosity), and it showed— the majority of the points given to Gryffindor in their classes were due to her lightning-quick hand-raising. Professor McGonagall, who Harriet could tell strove to be staid and even-handed, nearly beamed when Harriet and Hermione were the first two students to correctly identify the Transfiguration terms she asked about.

And then, after lunch, it was time for their first class with the Slytherins— a double period of Potions with Professor Snape.

“If Malfoy tries to sit next to me, I swear I’m going to clock him,” Harriet grumbled as the Gryffindors made their way down to the dungeons. “Every time he looks at me he’s gaping like a fish. I don’t know what his problem is.”

“His problem is that he’s a Malfoy,” Ron stated flatly. “That whole family is as Dark as it gets. My dad says Malfoy’s father followed You-Know-Who back in the day.”

Harriet swallowed. That certainly didn’t make her feel better at all.

The first-year Slytherins were waiting in the corridor outside the Potions classroom, fairly quiet and subdued. Harriet quickly looked away from the boys— most of whom were gathered around the last person she wanted to make eye contact with— and found her dorm-mates in their own little grouping. Daphne waved at her. Harriet waved back awkwardly. Pansy’s eyes darted over Harriet and Hermione, her gaze assessing. Harriet wasn’t entirely sure what Pansy meant by that look, but it made her nervous and she thought she’d better just address it. She wasn’t half a Gryffindor for nothing. Harriet took Hermione by the hand and tugged her towards Pansy and the others.

“Harry,” Hermione hissed, obviously not on board with Harriet’s plan.

“It’ll be fine,” Harriet muttered back. But she couldn’t help noticing that there was an awful lot of murmuring coming from both the Slytherins and the Gryffindors as the two girls bridged the gap between the houses. Ron looked suspicious, Neville looked frightened, and Draco looked a little bit sick.

“Hi, Pansy,” Harriet said. “Daphne. Tracey. Millicent. This is my friend Hermione.”

“Hello,” Hermione all but squeaked, nervousness sending her voice up an octave.

“Hello,” said Pansy, looking Hermione up and down. The other girls stayed silent, seemingly waiting to take their cue from Pansy, whose eyes caught on Hermione’s black patent mary-jane flats.  “Are those Muggle shoes?”

“Erm,” Hermione replied, “I suppose so?” Clearly, she had never considered that wizarding shoes might be at all different from regular ones.

Pansy hesitated for just the briefest of moments, as if weighing her options. Then— “I like them,” she decided aloud. As if in response to her words, the door to the Potions classroom swung suddenly open, hitting the wall behind it with a loud bang. All of the Gryffindors jumped. “Walk with me,” said Pansy to both Harriet and Hermione, and without waiting for an answer, she swooped in between them, seizing Harriet by her right arm and Hermione by her left. She linked her own arms through the other two girls’ elbows, and pulled them into the classroom alongside her.

Professor Snape was waiting at the front of the classroom, standing in front of a heavy, forbidding-looking desk made of black walnut. Of the bottles of ink in the desk’s corner, Harriet noted nervously, more than half were red. Behind Snape’s desk was an enormous blank chalkboard. The rest of the classroom consisted of low, scarred worktables, each containing what looked like a burner, and two towering wall-to-wall shelves of books, jars, cauldrons, and other supplies.

“Two to a table,” Professor Snape said quietly as the students filed in, without any introduction or preamble. “And one group of three, as we’ve an odd number.”

Pansy, Harriet noted with some amusement, radiated absolute smugness as she tugged Harriet and Hermione to the middle worktable of the leftmost row, while the rest of the Gryffindors and Slytherins divided themselves strictly along House lines.

Professor Snape began to call roll with a note of impatience in his voice, as if ascertaining whether or not his students were present was a horrendous chore. Harriet thought he hesitated over her name a moment longer than the others, something unreadable in his black eyes, but she couldn’t be sure. Then came the speech.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking,” he began. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death— if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

Many of the Slytherins, Harriet noticed, looked nearly as smug as Pansy had a moment ago, as if they were certain to be excluded from the ‘dunderhead’ category. Neville, sitting with Ron at the table on their left, looked positively ill with terror.

“Miss Potter!” Snape barked, making Harriet jump slightly in her seat. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” Both Hermione’s hand and Draco’s immediately flew upwards, but Snape ignored them both, staring quite intently at Harriet. When she hesitated, he raised a single brow, managing to look both condescending and more than a little threatening.

But Harriet hadn’t pored over her textbooks for nothing. “The… the Draught of Living Death, sir.” Hermione and Draco put their hands down, both looking more than a little put out.

Snape regarded Harriet for another moment, unblinking. Then he gave a sharp nod and turned on his heel to face the other side of the room. “Mr. Malfoy. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

“They’re the same plant, sir.”

“Correct. Weasley! Where would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?”

“I, uh, I’m not sure, sir.”

“Two points from Gryffindor,” Snape said coolly. “I do hope the rest of you spent more time with your books than Weasley. Two points to Slytherin, Mr. Malfoy, and one each to Slytherin and Gryffindor for Miss Potter.” Snape waved his wand, and instructions appeared on the blackboard in spiky, angry-looking handwriting. “Today we will be focusing on the Boil Cure potion. I suspect many of you will find it useful before long.”

The students were nearly silent as they worked through the Potions practical, muttering quietly with ducked heads when they needed to confer with a partner. Harriet found that she enjoyed brewing with Hermione and Pansy by her side— both of them were clearly what Dudley would have referred to as ‘swots,’ and Hermione for her part seemed to have practically memorized One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. Harriet, for her part, took direction without issue when Hermione showed her the proper stirring technique and Pansy commented on the difference between chopping and dicing. Professor Snape, meanwhile, swooped up and down the aisle, keeping a sharp eye out for mishaps.

Then, an odd thing occurred about three-quarters of the way into the lesson. Harriet, who had rolled her sleeves up to her elbows to keep them out of the way as she stirred the nearly-complete potion (“Thirty-six clockwise stirs and thirty-seven counterclockwise,” said Hermione), happened to look up, stirring with her right hand and pushing her hair out of her eyes with her left, as Snape drew even with their worktable. Snape’s dark eyes widened, seemingly caught on something in mid-air— Harriet’s left wrist. He faltered, his smooth stride broken as something indecipherable flashed across his face.

Just then, there was a very loud hissing sound, followed by a column of green smoke billowing upwards from the table to their left— Ron and Neville’s cauldron had exploded, dousing the two of them in something that apparently created boils instead of curing them. Snape swept toward them immediately, Banishing the mess with an angry swipe of his wand and berating both boys, taking more points from Gryffindor as he ordered them off to the hospital wing. The class dissolved into the closest thing to chaos Harriet had yet seen grace Snape’s classroom, and he dismissed them all with an obvious bad temper.

But even as Harriet and Hermione said goodbye to Pansy and set out for History of Magic, Harriet’s thoughts kept circling back to the startling expression that had crossed the Potions Master’s face when he caught sight of her mother’s beaded bracelet.

Chapter Text

Severus wondered if he could reasonably expect to suffer from a constant headache for the entirety of his tenure at Hogwarts. With each passing year it seemed more likely, and now with the Potter girl— but it didn’t bear thinking about. He couldn’t change a thing.

Weeks had passed since the first day of term, the day when Harriet Potter had rolled up her sleeves in Potions class and revealed to Severus something that he had long resigned himself to never seeing again. Why, after all, would Lily have kept the bracelet after everything that Severus did to cause the dramatic implosion of their friendship? If it had been valuable, that would have been one thing— but Severus Snape, working-class half-blood from Manchester, had never had extra money to throw around, especially not at the age of eleven. No, the bracelet was just string and beads, and he had even transfigured the beads himself out of old buttons. By rights they should have changed back years ago, should not have held their shape so long under the shoddy magic of a child, but the little jet flowers had looked just the same on Potter’s wrist as they always had on Lily’s. Severus very carefully did not consider the strength of emotion that was necessary to uphold a spell for that long and at such a distance. It was nothing he didn’t already know, and thinking about it wasn’t going to do anything besides tear his Occlumency shields to shreds.

But the bracelet, and its constant presence on Potter’s wrist and the resulting emotional turmoil Severus found himself having to repress, was only the tip of the iceberg, as it were. Quirrell was acting spectacularly dodgy, Minerva had put Potter on the Gryffindor Quidditch team (“She asked first, Severus,” twinkled Dumbledore), and to cap it all off, Draco Malfoy was becoming an ever-increasing problem. The little twit couldn’t seem to decide whether he hated Harriet Potter with the fire of a thousand burning suns or wanted to swear his undying fealty to her. He had settled, unfortunately for Severus and everyone else in the castle, on a predictably puerile combination of figurative pigtail-pulling, interspersed with besotted stares. It was Draco’s fault that Potter had even been in the position for Minerva to put her on the Quidditch team— well, it was Potter’s fault for rising to such obvious bait, but Draco had started it. Merlin help them all if Draco ever figured out how he really felt about the girl, because he was doing quite enough damage while ignorant to his own motives. Severus tried to use the tutoring sessions that Narcissa had maneuvered him into offering as an opportunity to give the boy some lessons in the art of subtlety, but quickly gave it up as a bad job. As it stood, Draco was about as capable of subtlety as one of Lucius’s bloody peacocks.

And all the while, Halloween approached, bringing Severus ever closer to the anniversary of the murder of his only real friend, a murder for which he would always feel culpable. He abhorred Halloween on a good year— with Harriet Potter at Hogwarts, he was certain it would be even more intolerable.

Admittedly, he hadn’t predicted the troll.

* * *

“Prefects, lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately,” Dumbledore called as Professor Quirrell collapsed onto the ground in a dead faint. The Great Hall, which had been still and hushed from shock, erupted into chaotic flurries of movement.

“Our dormitories are in the dungeons with the troll,” Pansy fumed, looking like she was dangerously close to spitting fire like a dragon. “Are we meant to offer ourselves up as hors d’oeuvres?”

“Dumbledore forgetting about us isn’t exactly shocking,” Millicent added, “but where’s Professor Snape?”

Harriet fought to extricate herself from between Pansy and Daphne, each of whom had grasped her by an arm— Daphne frightfully, Pansy out of what seemed to be sheer fury. Indeed, the Slytherin Head of House was nowhere to be seen. Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout had all paused to instruct various prefects before sweeping out of the hall after the headmaster, but Snape had vanished so quickly after Professor Quirrell’s dramatic entrance that Harriet couldn’t even recall seeing him leave the head table. She glanced across the hall towards the mob of Gryffindors being chivvied along by an imperious Percy Weasley. Perhaps predictably, their exit from the Great Hall was going a lot less neatly than the exodus of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, who had followed their prefects docilely and were already disappearing into the corridors. Harriet was hoping to catch a glimpse of Hermione, but instead, her eyes landed on Anjali.

“Hang on,” she said, poking Pansy in the arm. “I’ve got an idea; tell the others not to leave the table yet.”

Pansy nodded and set her jaw, her hazel eyes taking on the steely glint that tended to accompany resolution. Harriet could hear her bellowing “Greg, Vincent— stay put! Draco, I swear to Merlin—” as she made her way around the end of the Slytherin table, hurrying towards the Gryffindors.

“Potter!” Gemma Farley, an intimidatingly tall seventh year, seized Harriet by the shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“There’s no time,” Harriet said, wrenching away from the Head Girl. “Anjali!” she called.

Anjali paused, turning around. “Harriet?”

“We can’t go to the Slytherin dormitories; they’re in the dungeons. With the troll.”

Anjali swore under her breath, pushing an uncharacteristic stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Right, of course. Come on then, you’ll stay with us tonight.” She beckoned for Harriet to follow, glancing over her shoulder at the rest of the departing Gryffindors.

“And the others?”

Anjali looked slightly taken aback, and then her eyes widened. “Oh, Merlin.”

“She’s right, Kapoor.” Gemma came up behind Harriet. “The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs have gone already. And it’s not just Potter that can’t go to the dungeons.”

“The other prefects are going to have my head, but you’re right. There’s nothing for it. Round up your kids, Farley, and I’ll show you all where to go.”

* * *

As if Severus wasn’t going to remember that Quirrell had studied trolls in the years preceding his research trip to Albania. The idiot may have returned from abroad with a stutter and an apparent terror of anything having to do with the subject he was supposed to teach, but Severus could hardly be expected to believe that his new fears extended to his own bloody academic specialty. There was simply no way that a troll scholar, even a particularly stupid one, would faint after encountering a single mountain troll. Quirrell had tipped his hand— this was a distraction, and accordingly Severus was halfway to the out-of-bounds third-floor corridor before you could say “dunderhead.” The fact that all he got for his troubles was a leg wound from Hagrid’s thrice-damned Cerberus and the humiliating realization that he’d not been around to point out to Dumbledore that his students’ dormitories were in the dungeon simply didn’t enter into it. Although he had to admit, if only in the privacy of his own formidable mind, that he perhaps deserved the raised eyebrow that Minerva was aiming at him right now. She hadn’t been any help either, however, so he raised one right back.

“Fifty points to Gryffindor,” Dumbledore said, “and fifty to Slytherin. Miss Potter, Miss Kapoor, Miss Farley— I applaud your quick thinking.”

The entirety of Slytherin House was currently crammed into the Gryffindor common room, looking about as ill at ease as Severus himself felt. Except for Potter, of course, and— oddly enough— Pansy Parkinson, who was looking unsettlingly chummy with Potter’s Muggle-born friend, Granger. The Gryffindor students seemed to have largely retreated farther into the dormitories to avoid the invaders, but a handful of them, including all of the prefects, had stayed, gathered in a knot near the fireplace.

“Has the troll been apprehended, sir?” Head Girl Farley asked Dumbledore.

“Yes, yes, all taken care of.” Dumbledore literally waved a hand, and Severus quelled the urge to throttle him. Reassuringly, it looked like Minerva was having to do much the same thing. Her mouth was tightly puckered, as if she’d been sucking on a lemon. “You and Professor Snape can return your charges to the dungeons, Miss Farley.”

Farley just nodded, unreadable as any respectable seventh-year Slytherin, and began to round up the children, the other prefects hurrying to help her. When everyone had been chivvied into the hall and around a couple of corners, Severus tapped Potter by the shoulder and pulled her aside, waving for Farley and the others to go on.

“Potter.” He paused. He wasn’t at all sure how to do this.

“Sir?” The girl was looking up at him anxiously, and somewhere in the back of his mind Severus noted that even after a summer in Minerva and Poppy’s care and two months of the Hogwarts house-elves’ cooking, she was still altogether too thin. “Have I done something wrong?”

Quite to the contrary. “I merely wished to inquire after your well-being. Given… the nature of the day.”

Potter’s eyes were entirely too guileless as her small brow furrowed. “Er, I’m fine, Professor Snape. Really. We didn’t even see the troll.”

“No, Miss Potter.” Severus snapped, fighting the way his hand was itching to rub the bridge of his nose. “I have not pulled you aside to question you about the troll. Forgive me for being rather more concerned about the anniversary of your parents’ murder.” The moment the words left his mouth, Severus wished he could take them back. It wasn’t the child’s fault that she was eleven, and therefore an idiot— however much he would relish being able to blame children for being idiots. He still shouldn’t have spoken of Lily’s death— or even James’s— in such a callous manner.

But Potter, to Severus’s dawning horror, didn’t look merely hurt or frightened, the way most students usually did when faced with his cutting tongue. She looked… blank. As if Severus’s words had wiped out anything and everything happening behind her eyes.

She hadn’t known. Salazar’s balls, she hadn’t known. And why had he assumed she had? As if Petunia had been so forthright about any other part of the child’s past.

“They… they died on Halloween?” Potter’s voice was a husk, a whisper. “I… oh.”

“Potter— Miss Potter.” Severus cleared his throat. “I apologize. That was ill done of me. I was not aware that you did not know.”

“Pansy’s been giving me odd looks all day,” Potter muttered, as if in a trance. “So have the others, come to that. Oh.”

Indeed, Severus thought, oh. Because there really was nothing else to say, no way to soothe the laceration he’d unwittingly cut into the girl. “Do you require… time to digest this? Perhaps a calming draught? Madam Pomfrey would no doubt be willing to have you in the infirmary for the remainder of the night.” The child shook her head mutely, and Severus swallowed a sigh. It was hard to imagine how he could feel worse than he did right now. “Then come along,” he said heavily. “Let us return you to your compatriots before Miss Parkinson sends out a search team.”

“Professor?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you. For telling me.”

Severus had been wrong. He could, and did, feel worse.

Chapter Text

“The thing is,” said Hermione, closing her Charms textbook with a thump and making both Harriet and Pansy jump slightly, “someone must have let the troll in. Mountain trolls aren’t intelligent, or even native to this area. For one to have found its own way into the school isn’t just unlikely; it’s impossible.” She said all of this very matter-of-factly, as if she were continuing a conversation they’d already been having rather than making a startling announcement more than an hour into a mostly-silent library study session.

“Granger,” began Pansy, closing her book more quietly, “what in Merlin’s name are you on about?” Harriet fought the urge to bang her head down on the table and groan. Pansy and Hermione got on like a house on fire, but in such a way that sometimes people got burned. Harriet thought that it was mostly down to competitive spirit— both of them were entirely too clever by half. Most of their disagreements were academic in nature, but all of them— all of them— began with one girl or the other breaking out the surnames.

It had only been a week since Halloween, but the incident with the troll had largely faded in the collective student consciousness. After all, only so much excitement could be drawn from a creature that no one outside of the staff had managed to lay eyes on. It might have been different if any of the students had found themselves in close quarters with the troll— but then again, it might not have, because Quidditch season was hard upon Hogwarts, and nothing could have competed with the rabidity with which the student body devoted themselves to the inter-House league. Unless, that is, you were Hermione, who didn’t particularly care for flying, team sports, or any combination of the two.

“Well, Parkinson,” she replied now, glaring daggers at Pansy. “I just think that if someone in Hogwarts decided to bring a dangerous magical creature into the school, we should all be on our guard. Someone could have been killed.”

“Or it could have just been a stupid prank,” Pansy retorted. “Those Weasley twins of yours, they’re always doing things that could be dangerous. And the troll was in the dungeons, so if someone let it in they were after Slytherins. That sounds like a prank to me.”

“The twins cause trouble, not permanent damage,” said Harriet.

“Then what?” This was directed to Hermione, as if Pansy was determined to argue with her rather than with Harriet. “You think we should be worrying about some sort of conspiracy?”

“I think that only an adult witch or wizard could exercise enough control over a troll to have pulled that stunt on Halloween,” Hermione said grimly. “I think it was a teacher. And yes, I think that should worry us.”

“But why would a teacher let a troll into the school?” Harriet wondered aloud.

“That,” answered Hermione, “is exactly what I want to know.”

But as admirably focused on the possibility of danger as Hermione was, the three young witches were going to be waiting a while for answers. Spying on potentially suspicious professors wasn’t quite the type of research that Hermione was used to, Pansy still wasn’t convinced that the troll hadn’t simply been an anti-Slytherin prank, and Harriet— well, Harriet’s spare hours were spoken for.

“Yes, Potter, that’s it! Fred— George— whichever Weasley that is, stop distracting her! I want to see if she can beat yesterday’s record.”

Oliver Wood, Keeper and captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, was a Scottish fifth-year with an obsessive nature who tended to focus all of that obsession on his chosen sport— and right now, that meant focusing on the newest, and perhaps most talented, member of the team. He’d started Harriet off easy, throwing Muggle golf balls for her to chase and catch the same way she’d caught Neville’s Remembrall when Malfoy had stolen it during flying class. But for the last couple of weeks she’d been practicing with a real golden Snitch, and the tiny, winged ball was incredibly fast and had all sorts of clever evasive maneuvers up its metaphorical sleeves. Luckily, Harriet herself was also plenty fast and clever.

When she landed in the center of the Quidditch pitch with the Snitch in hand and a wide grin for Oliver, the other members of the team— Alicia, Angelina, and Katie were the Chasers, and of course Fred and George were the Beaters— abandoned their various drills and followed her down.

“Well?” asked Angelina, who was probably the second most-Quidditch mad on the team, after Oliver. “Did she beat it?”

“Seven minutes and twenty-seven seconds,” Oliver said proudly, holding up his stopwatch. “Almost half a minute faster than yesterday. This is it, people. We’re finally going to take the Cup for Gryffindor; I can feel it in my bloody bones. Marcus Flint and his team of orangutans can all go suck a— ”

Alicia clapped her gloved hands over Harriet’s ears, hissing at Oliver.

“Yeah, Oliver, no corrupting the Seeker who’s going to win us the Cup,” said Fred with a sideways smile. “You’ll shock her poor innocent ears.”

“I know he wasn’t very well going to say ‘lolly,’” Harriet grumbled, pushing Alicia’s hands away.

“Anyway, cheers,” said George, throwing one arm around Harriet and one arm around Oliver. “McGonagall tends to be much less uptight when we’re winning at Quidditch. She shrugs off just enough of the raging disciplinarian to be Quidditch-mad like the rest of us.”

“Makes it easier to get up to no good.” Fred added, winking roguishly.

Harriet parted from the rest of the team in the entrance hall, as they were bound for Gryffindor tower and she for the dungeons. She felt good, like she always did after a practice— tired and a little wrung out, but enjoyably so. But she wished the first game of the season wasn’t going to be Gryffindor versus Slytherin. It put her squarely in the middle of a heated rivalry that she was already much too close to for comfort.

“Traitor,” muttered Draco Malfoy as she entered the common room, and yes, there was the case in point. Harriet supposed she ought to have changed out of her Gryffindor Quidditch robes at the lockers instead of wearing them back to the castle, but the girls’ locker room showers were notoriously grotty no matter how many cleaning charms Katie grimly applied, so the players tended to just troop back to their dormitories to clean up. This just meant that Harriet had the delightful privilege of walking through the Slytherin common room wearing what were, for all intents and purposes, enemy colors. It’s not that she was afraid, and certainly not of Malfoy, but several upper-year students were also looking at her like she was a plague rat, which didn’t bode well.

She gave Malfoy two fingers and hurried into the dormitory corridor, only to promptly collide with another student. Harriet’s coordination, when she was not on a broom, was not always the best, so with a slightly pathetic windmilling of her arms, down she went. The other student stayed standing, and she couldn’t decide if she was relieved not to have knocked anyone over or embarrassed to be the only one on the floor.

“Here, Potter.” It was Remy Olivier, the second-year who had the room next to the first-year girls’ dorm. Harriet didn’t know Remy well— they were studious enough to be mistaken for a Ravenclaw and tended to keep to themselves, making exceptions only for Zubeida Khan and Elizabeth Mkapa, fellow second-years in Slytherin and Ravenclaw respectively.

“Thanks,” said Harriet, taking Remy’s proffered hand and letting herself be pulled to her feet. “Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going. Trying to get changed out of this,” she gestured at her uniform with a grimace, “as fast as possible.”

“Don’t let the idiots out there get to you,” Remy said, adjusting their horn-rimmed glasses. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned since coming to Hogwarts, it’s that people don’t handle in-between things very well. Wizards and Muggles are both crap at it, actually.”

“Thanks,” Harriet repeated, not sure what else to say. “Are you— I mean, do they—?”

Remy took pity on her. “A couple people in my year didn’t take it so well last year when I switched dorms. But then Gemma Farley reported them to Professor Snape and he had all of them in detention for weeks, plus giving the whole house this big Slytherin unity speech. Malfoy gives you any more hassle, you should tell a prefect. Or you could always go directly to Snape.”

Harriet didn’t love being taunted by Malfoy and his ilk, but she’d bear it every day at a much more aggressive level before she’d willingly get herself into another one-on-one chat with Snape. No, sir. Not after their last conversation had resulted in him bringing up her murdered parents. She thanked Remy a third time and made a solemn vow to herself that no matter how bad it got, she wasn’t going to involve Professor Snape.

She couldn’t help regretting this approach when Saturday’s match arrived and she found herself clinging to a Nimbus Two Thousand that seemed to have suddenly gone insane. Harriet didn’t know what kind of spell was capable of sabotaging her broomstick like this, but it was certainly beyond Draco Malfoy’s ability. Maybe one of the older Slytherins who’d been staring at her maliciously since her appointment to the Gryffindor team was more brassed off than she’d though.

And maybe she really needed to stop thinking about it and focus on not falling to her death in the middle of her first-ever Quidditch match.

Time blended and spun in the ensuing chaos, as Harriet fought her broom, nearly toppled off of it, climbed back on, caught the snitch in her mouth, and landed.

Both Snape and McGonagall were by her side on the pitch before the rest of her teammates even had a chance to land. Between McGonagall’s diagnostic spells, Snape’s hissed counter-curses aimed at the still-twitching broom, and the arrival of Headmaster Dumbledore in a set of truly eye-watering orange robes, Harriet’s vision was full of spellfire, color, and concern. But when the dust settled and she looked up into the Gryffindor stands where Hermione and Pansy were sitting (“It’s solidarity for Harriet, you twat,” Pansy had sniffed when Tracey questioned her decision to sit there), she was greeted with a still more perplexing sight. Hermione’s eyes were so wide that they were nearly bugging out of her head, and she was mouthing something gesticulating wildly in the direction of the small knot of teachers at Harriet’s back. Pansy just looked pale and shocked.

Making eye contact with Hermione, Harriet shook her head slightly and shrugged her shoulders, mouthing I don’t know what you’re pointing at. Pansy nudged Hermione and whispered something in her ear, and Hermione’s eyes lit up like she’d just remembered something. She brandished her wand, pointing it towards Harriet and the teachers, and a thin beam of violet light, hardly more than a gossamer thread, lit a clear path from the tip of Hermione’s wand to the back of a cloaked figure dressed all in black.

Now, Harriet could tell what she was mouthing. Snape, Hermione repeated, silently and emphatically, jabbing her wand forward as if she could force the violet spell into his body. It was Professor Snape.