Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dahlia is sitting in the compartment, vacantly staring out onto the platform through the foggy window when the door slides open, and a pair of siblings come in, dragging their trunks behind them. 

“You’re late.” James accuses, having momentarily lifted his head from her lap to observe the newcomers. He drops it back with a tired groan. A morning person he was not, and they had been woken particularly early after a late night by a Jarvey who had found a way into the pantry. It had taken hours to catch the damn thing. 

“The hallway is very packed,” Ava explains with a gentle smile, sitting down on the opposite bench while her brother puts away their trunks. “Everyone is excited. They all say Harry Potter will be attending Hogwarts this year.” 

“He is.” She confirms with a faint grimace. Despite knowing this was coming, she still mourned the end of her relatively peaceful school days.

Kyle sits down, pulling out a book from a pocket, and she takes a curious peek at the title - Merpeople: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Language and Customs by Dylan Marwood. He always had the most interesting books. “It’s easy to forget you’re related.” He comments, flipping through the pages to find the spot he had left off of. “You never speak about him.” 

Dahlia doesn’t bother commenting on that nonchalant remark and returns her attention to the people on the platform. It was true anyway, she and Harry really did have a rather strained relationship, even if it was mainly her fault.

See, the thing is, she had died once already. Though, hell if she remembered how. It could have been a simple heart attack or the famous Japanese Truck-kun, and she couldn’t care less to find out. She only knew there had been pain like she’d never felt before, and next thing she knows, she’s waking up as the world’s grumpiest toddler, and that was more than enough information for her, thank you very much.

That Dahlia did not remember her previous life immediately, her brain too young and too undeveloped to contain the memories of an entirely different world is one of the scarce things she was grateful for in this new life. She would have undoubtedly had long since gone mad, had she been aware during her own birth or those first few years of being a baby. 

What she downright hated, on the other hand, was that she’d been somehow reborn in J.K. Rowling’s fictional universe. To fucking James and Lily Potter of all people! 

She felt like crying whenever she thought about it even years after her horrifying realization. 

It’s not like she had replaced Harry, thank fuck, but she now was his previously unmentioned in anything but fanfics older sister. Which in fact – the second horrifying realization had come days after the first and brought with it renewed hysterics – might be even worse since she was not the hero of this story. That particular role remained Harry’s as far as she was aware unless in the last eleven years there had been a new secret prophecy, but that would be so cliché it was unlikely. He was the Chosen One, and she was the Girl-Who-Wasn’t-Supposed-To-Exist, period. Thus, she was unlikely to possess a similar protagonist plot armor to his, and yet she was just a little less likely to be targeted by Voldemort and his Death Eater cronies. She still was one of the muggle-loving, blood-traitor Potters after all and an excellent prospective hostage.

Already, she’d survived that fateful Halloween only by sheer luck, having spent the entire day hiding in a closet just in case Rowling’s got the time of the attack wrong. When Voldemort came – at the right time too, as far as she was aware – he probably hadn’t even thought of the little girl who was doing her best not to make any sounds or even breathe, really, the entire time he was there. No doubt, it would have been a whole other story if he had indeed noticed her. Or maybe he had assumed he’d take care of her after he finished with Harry? Whatever the case, Dahlia lived, and that’s all that mattered to her. 

Make no mistake, she had tried warning the Potters, of course – she wasn’t a monster – and it was in her best interests for them to remain alive, but who was going to listen to a three-year-old, no matter how precocious? 

So yes, she’d been rather bitter about everything when they were left with the Dursleys, which meant she treated Harry a bit coldly at first. And after, she found it easier to avoid him altogether. How did it go again? Out of mind, out of sight, was it?

With a jerk, the train begins to move. Parents start waving and calling out last-minute advice and goodbyes as their children lean out the windows. A little red-headed girl runs after the train, half laughing, half crying until it gathered too much speed, and then she stood at the edge of the platform, waving. 

“How was your summer holiday?” Ava inquires when it was clear Dahlia wasn’t going to say anything more on the subject of her brother. “You spent most of it at James’, no? 

She smiles at the other girl, thankful for the subject change. “It was interesting.” She says noncommittedly.

James snorts. “We were almost arrested by the muggle police.” He explains. 

The blond girl gasps, appalled, and even Kyle lifts his head from his book with a raised eyebrow. “And how did that happen?”

“Sorry, but we made a pact to never speak of it again.”

“We did learn that James has a horrible sense of direction and that he should never be the one trusted with the map.” Dahlia earns herself a glare for that comment, but the large grin James’ face splits into immediately after told her he wasn’t actually offended. It had been very funny, no one could deny that. Except for the poor policemen, but she tried not to think about that. She hoped they hadn’t been traumatized too badly. 

“Like you were any better, Miss-let’s-obliviate-them.” He reminds her. 

She pouts. “It would have been a viable option.”

“Yes.” He retorts. “If we were allowed to use magic outside the school and if we knew how to cast it in the first place.”

“You’re both hopeless,” Kyle informs them, looking faintly amused. 

Ava giggles behind a delicate hand. “You must have done something other than whatever almost made you into juvenile criminals.” 

“Chores mostly.” James answers in a lazy draw. “There’s always a lot of those on the estate. Summer homework, of course. Dahlia learned how to ride on horses.” 

“Oh? How was it?” 

“Absolutely lovely.” She sighs, a dreamy expression flitting across her face, remembering all the afternoons they had spent racing through the fields of grass and flowers. “I loved it. Next year, I want to learn how to ride on an Abraxan.” 

“She’s a natural.” James boasts. “Only took a few bad falls in the beginning. What about you?” 

“We took a family trip to Greece. Visited the gorgeous beaches, and the temples…They were so beautiful, Jamie! You should have seen them! It was…”

Dahlia leans back into the bench, and sharing a fond smile with Kyle lets the chatter of their more talkative companions fill the compartment. 

It had been nice to spend an entire summer with one of her best friends, but she had missed the other two, despite writing to each other as often as possible. Even in her first life, she never had friends as close as they were. 

Somewhere around noon, with some clattering, a witch with a large sweets-laden trolley stops outside their compartment and slides open their door. “Anything off the trolley, dears?” 

James finally deigns to rise from her lap and reaches into his pocket for some money. “Two Pumpkin Pasties and a box of Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavor Beans, please.” He turns back towards them. “You want anything?” 

“A Chocolate Frog, maybe? I think I’ll wait until the feast to eat.” Dahlia says thoughtfully. 

Kyle nods in agreement. “We’re quite alright, thank you.” 

“If you say so.” James shrugs and turns back to the trolley to pay. 

Coming back into the compartment, he tosses the Frog at her and collapses ungracefully back on the bench. 

“Who did you get, Dah?” Ava asks.  

She shrugs indifferently. “I don’t actually collect those, you know.”

“I’m aware. We don’t either, but our younger cousins do.”

“Theo and Draco, right?” Unwrapping her candy, she picks up the card. Albus Dumbledore. Of course. Perhaps Harry was also opening his own Chocolate Frog box and discovering the very same card somewhere on the train at this precise moment. 

She swipes with a thumb across the golden, glittering writing as she read the vaguely familiar words. 

Albus Dumbledore, currently Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern

Times, Professor Dumbledore is particularly famous for

his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945,

For the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s

Blood and his work on alchemy with his partner,

Nicholas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys

Chamber music and tenpin bowling.

This was the Golden Trio’s first mystery. The adventure that shaped their friendship from Quirrell’s troll on Halloween that became the cataclysm that brought them together, to their race against time to not only discover what was hidden on the third-floor corridor but to also protect it from a Dark Lord. 

She had already decided to limit her contribution if she ever got more involved than she was currently. And though her fear of accidentally changing the storyline so severely her future knowledge would be next to useless was the deciding factor behind her choice, she doubted she would regret it. After all, the Trio had succeeded without her help in the books. There was no reason they couldn’t do it now. 

“Dahlia?” 

“Ah, sorry. Here.” She hands the card to the concerned-looking Ava. “They probably both already have a Dumbledore, but they could always trade this one.”  

“Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine, don’t worry. Just thinking.” 

Thankfully, before the other girl could try probing further, the compartment door slides open yet again, revealing a pair of first-year students. She turns away from Ava’s worried, pale blue eyes, feeling grateful for the interruption. 

That sentiment quickly faded for a faint sense of dismay.

Bushy brown hair, rather large front teeth, dressed in her uniform with hours to go till they reach Hogwarts, and accompanied by a nervous-looking, round-faced boy? This was clearly Hermione Granger. 

“Have you seen a toad? Neville lost his.” She says, and Jesus, Rowling’s had been right. She definitely had a bossy sort of voice. It was actually a little unpleasant even, to be addressed with that sort of tone by an eleven-year-old girl. 

Kyle lowers his book, a cold sort of look on his face. “We have not. I suggest you ask an older student to use a Summoning Charm for you.”

“Oh, of course. Wizards can do that.” Hermione pauses, and they exchange puzzled glances when she doesn’t immediately thank them and leaves. “What are you reading? I’ve learned all our set books by heart, of course, and I have done some background reading, but there’s still so much I’m missing. Nobody has magic in my family, you know, we almost didn’t believe the letter when I got it. By the way, what Houses are you in? I hope I’m going to Gryffindor, but Ravenclaw sounds nice too. Is Slytherin really the House of the bullies?”

Did Hermione go around saying something similar to everyone she encounters? Dahlia could swear that was almost exactly what she had said to Harry and Ron when she had first met them. Thought it had been a while since she had read the books, so she could be wrong… And Hermione obviously had not encountered any other Slytherin if she still went around insulting them like this. It’ll be a miracle if nobody cursed her before they reached Hogwarts at this rate. 

Neville fidgets nervously beside the young girl, clearly wanting to say something but too timid to do so. 

“I doubt you need to know about the customs of the Merpeople in your first year.” Ava finally says kindly, after a short moment of silence. “And I’m certain you will be sorted in the house you are most suited for.” 

Hermione looks like she’s about to ask something else, but Neville gathers enough courage to tugs at her sleeve frantically, whispering something to her. The boy’s not stupid, Dahlia notes approvingly. At least he’s noticed that neither Kyle nor James were willing to entertain two firsties and their never-ending questions if his wary glances to her friends were anything to judge by. 

“Well, thank you for your help. We’ll be going then. Come along, Neville.” And with that, she flounces off, bushy hair bouncing and Neville trailing after her. 

“How rude.” Kyle eventually murmurs. “As expected from a muggle-born.” 

“Don’t be mean.” Ava chides him. “She’s just a little girl, she’ll learn.”

Once, Dahlia would have gotten uncomfortable with the blatant racism, but she’s long since gotten used to it. It’s what happened when you were friends with pure-bloods. As long as they didn’t call them mudbloods or harassed them in her presence she was willing to let a few comments slide. They couldn’t help it, she had reasoned when they had first met, they were raised to think that way by their own parents and their parents before them by their parents for generations. Besides, they were far from the worst. There were plenty who were much more overt with their disgust for the muggle-born. James, Ava, and Kyle only mostly thought of them as uneducated country bumpkins who were unwilling to learn the customs of the new society they were entering. Being seen with a book on wizard traditions and practices had helped Dahlia a lot with her own social standing. 

“So, what were you saying about divination, Kyle?” She changes the subject back to the one they were on before being interrupted by the Trolley witch. 

“That it is a useless class unless you already possess the gift of foresight. I do hope none of you took it, even for the easy marks. Dumbledore should have gotten rid of it ages ago.” He huffs. 

“Nah. I’ve got Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies.” James says.

“Muggle Studies? Why would you need Muggle Studies of all classes?” Kyle’s nose wrinkles in disgust. 

“We occasionally deal with muggles too, so mum insisted,” The brunet explains indifferently. “Anything for the family business, you know?”

“And you, Dahlia? None of that nonsense from you I expect.”

“Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures.” She lists, lips twitching in amusement. She used to be a twenty-first-century muggle, she definitely did not need Muggle Studies. 

Ava frowns. “Are you certain? That’s a pretty heavy course load.” 

“I’ll probably drop Care of Magical Creatures in sixth year.” She shrugs. “It seems like something you should know at least the basics off, but I’m not planning on working with animals after we graduate.” And this way, she’ll have Hagrid as her teacher for only a year. Not that she had anything against him, but he clearly wasn’t the best suited for teaching. 

“I suppose it’s not a bad idea.” Ava concedes. “I’ll be taking Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, like Kyle. And maybe take Art or Music as an extra-curricular subject, I haven’t decided yet.” 

“You have one more week to choose for extra-curricular, right?” James recalls. 

“Yes. Which is why I want to wait and see, they allow you to visit the older classes.” 

For the next long while, they entertain themselves by debating the pros and cons of magical art and music, trying to decide which of the two classes would suit Ava best. Personally, Dahlia was all for the music course. She’d seen a magical art lesson in progress once through an open door and had been far from impressed. As a former amateur hobbyist painter, the sight of a group of students using only their wands as tools to spell on images onto blank canvas had offended her previously unknown sensibilities, but she knew trying to convince the other girl to take the Muggle Art class instead was a futile endeavor. And although she suspected magical music similarly used magic to play the instruments, Ava had a beautiful voice and would make a wonderful singer. 

“What about chants?” She scrambles desperately for something, anything when it becomes clear she’s about to lose the debate. “You’re one of Professor Flitwick’s favorites, maybe he would be willing to teach you how to sing spell?

The others paused, surprised. 

“That is…” Kyle trails off thoughtfully. 

“A very good idea.” Ava finished for her brother. “Good job, Dahlia.” 

She grins victoriously in response and leans back into the seat, practically radiating smugness. She knew reading all those history books wouldn’t be useless!    

James turns to the window, and she thinks he’ll start sulking now. He had wanted Ava to choose the art classes, if only for the sake of winning the argument rather than having any real desire of seeing her in them.

To her surprise, he doesn’t. 

“I reckon it’s time to get changed. It’s getting dark.” He says instead, standing up. “We’ll let you girls go first.” 

Kyle murmurs a spell while tapping his wand on the windows looking out to the corridor, and also steps out. Behind him, the glass slowly darkens until it was impossible to see through. 

They change quickly, helping each other smooth out wrinkles and tie their ties correctly. Ava’s uniform is of noticeably better quality than hers, but neither does she look like a Weasley in their obvious second-hand clothes. She hadn’t seen the need to buy expensive clothes when she was only going to use them for a year before she outgrew them again, so she’d bought her robes already used and then had them magically fixed up by a seamstress until they looked like new. It was still less costly than brand-new ones, and for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why the Weasleys didn’t do the same. 

When they’re done, it’s their turn to loiter in front of the compartment door. It gradually grows more chaotic in the corridor as students start getting ready for disembarking. Prefects rush to and from compartments as they try to warn everyone of their imminent arrival, and the other students run back to their original seats for their things having previously left to go greet friends. 

As Dahlia steps out of the way of a harried-looking firstie, a voice echoes through the train. “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.” 

The boys join them just as the train starts slowing down, and they start making their way towards the closest door leading to the outside, pushing their way through the rapidly growing mass of students. Already, they could hear Hagrid call for the first years.

“That oaf,” James mutters, probably not intending to be heard above the din of the crowd. “We haven’t even stopped yet.” 

It was cold outside, and she wraps her arms around herself once she steps off the train, shivering. Ava sniffs daintily beside her, leaning into her brother’s side for warmth. 

They follow the rough dirt road leading from the platform to the stagecoaches, and just like the previous year, she has to studiously avoid looking at their front. Thestrals, Dahlia found, are even more creepy in reality than in the movies. Perhaps it was how disturbingly thin they were, their skin clinging to a fleshless skeleton. Or maybe it was their eyes, pupil-less and white, but unmistakeably still able to see the students walking around them. 

The journey towards the castle is spent in silence, each of them content to lean back into the lumpy seats as the carriage rattled and swayed beneath them up the long, sloping drive.

Their quiet is broken only after they walk through the giant oak front doors of the castle, past the cavernous entrance hall, and finally, stop beside the doorway leading to the Great Hall. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” Ava asks.

“The usual time, the usual place,” James confirms it. 

With a nod, they split up, heading towards their respective House tables; Ava to Hufflepuff, Kyle to Ravenclaw and James and her to Slytherin.

Her usual spot - somewhere near the middle of the table - is still empty, so she settles down with a pleased sigh before cordially greeting her Housemates. It was good to be back, despite all the trouble that will soon start. 

“How was your summer, Potter?” Zabini inquiries from the seat in front of hers.

“Pleasant.” She replies. “How was yours?”

“Enjoyable.” 

They share a quick smile and turn towards the front as a long line of scared first years enters, led by Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a four-legged stool on which sat an ancient wizard’s hat. It was frayed and dirty and getting worse with each year; Aunt Petunia would have never let it into the house and would not have been the only one. She could hardly believe she’d willingly consented to wear that rag.

The noise in the Great Hall fades away, and she feels the first threads of anxiety curl in her stomach. She’d been avoiding thinking about it, but what if her presence had changed something and Harry didn’t go to Gryffindor? What was she supposed to do then? Her foreknowledge would be completely useless before the story even got properly started.  

The Sorting Hat might have been signing, but it was as if she was underwater, everything muffled and distorted. She clenches her suddenly clammy hands in her skirt. 

A little girl with blond pigtails staggers out of the line of first years, puts on the hat, and almost immediately is sent to Hufflepuff. 

The next one is also Hufflepuff, but the first boy called up is a Ravenclaw. 

Ravenclaw again, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Slytherin, Hufflepuff… 

Hermione ended up in Gryffindor, of course… 

Neville forgot he was wearing the hat and had to return to give it to the next student… 

Slytherin for Draco Malfoy, already swaggering around like his father…

The crowd of first years slowly thinned, and finally, finally, Professor McGonagall calls for ‘Potter, Harry’. 

Her brother stumbles towards the stool with a rather queasy face, a crooked tie, and an untucked shirt, she distantly notices unsurprised. Like most little boys, Harry has never cared much about his appearance beyond complaining about Dudley’s old clothes. 

He sits down on the creaking stool, and the hat drops over his eyes. 

It was not a Hatstall, but nonetheless, the seconds seem to stretch for an infinity. The Hall is deadly silent, everyone waiting for the result with bated breath.  

“GRYFFINDOR!”

She gasps and slumps forward on the table in relief. The Gryffindor table was going nuts, cheering, and jumping around. She thinks she hears the Weasley twins chanting something, but it’s indistinct, lost amidst the rest of the yelling. 

James nudges her with an elbow and cocks a questioning eyebrow when she looks up at him. 

“I was terrified he’d end up with us.” She admits with a weak smile. 

“Really?”

“Yeah.” She sighs and gestures with a slight move of her head at a quartet of their Housemates sitting not far from them. They were unsubtly glaring at Harry.

James winces. “Right. That.” 

The rest of the first years are sorted in quick order, the last one, Zabini’s younger cousin, going to Slytherin, and Professor McGonagall rolls up her scroll and takes the Sorting Hat away.  

The Headmaster gets up to his feet, beaming and spreading open his arms wide. “Welcome!” He greets. “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!”  

Dahlia vaguely remembered this from the books, so unperturbed she reaches for the potatoes while the rest of her table exchanges confused glances. Even for Dumbledore that was a little strange. 

“So, Harry Potter.” Burke begins, and she scowls at him. 

“Yes, he’s my brother, no, I’m not telling you anything else. Don’t you dare bother him, Craig Burke.” 

“Alright, alright, no need to bite my head off, Potter.” He laughs. “Pass the chicken.” 

“That goes for the rest of you as well.” She tells the rest of her unashamedly eavesdropping Housemates.

They grumble a bit but don’t argue either. She knows they weren’t going to let this go, not yet anyway, but for now, it was enough for her. 

Conversations pick up around them, and she lets herself be pulled into one about brooms.  

Eventually, the last of the dessert disappear, and Dumbledore stands once again. 

He gives a short cough, bringing the students' attention to him. “Just a few more words now that we are fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.” Here, his twinkling eyes flash in the direction of the Gryffindor table. “I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

A few people laugh, but her Housemates mainly react to that announcement by glowering at the Headmaster in discontent. They were of the opinion that anything life-threatening had no place in their school and were not happy with Dumbledore for allowing something that dangerous inside. 

Already, it was clear that several of the Gryffindors will try their luck and brave the third-floor corridor, and since she knew the door could be unlocked by a simple Unlocking Charm – a first-year spell – she will be very surprised if no one other than Professor Snape ends up mauled by Hagrid’s darling Fluffy by the end of the term. 

Truly, what possessed Dumbledore to keep a full-grown Cerberus in a school filled with curious, disobedient children and then announce it to everyone in a way that guaranteed someone will go exploring without fail… 

“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” Dumbledore cries, giving a little flick of his wand and ignoring the displeased murmuring of the students. A long golden ribbon rises high above the tables and twists itself into words. “Everyone pick your favorite tune, and off we go!” 

Much of her table remains stubbornly silent as it does every year, too proud to sing such a song, and most of the teachers accompany them, fixed smiles on their faces. 

“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,

Teach us something please,

Whether we be old and bald

Or young with scabby knees,

Our heads could do with filling

With some interesting stuff,

For now, they’re bare and full of air,

Dead flies and bits of fluff,

So, teach us things worth knowing,

Bring back what we’ve forgot,

Just do your best, we’ll do the rest,

And learn until our brains all rot.”

The Weasley twins are the last to finish, having chosen a very slow funeral march, and Dumbledore conducts the remaining notes with his wand. 

“I feel like digging a rusted spoon in my ears every time I hear this.” James hisses to her. 

She nods in agreement. “This can’t be traditional. Can you imagine Salazar Slytherin agreeing to this? Besides, they would have been speaking in West Saxon when they founded the school.” She pauses. “Or it could have been Gaelic. Or Norse. Or even Norman French.” Burke throws her an incredulous glance, which she ignores, more interested in solving her self-posed riddle. “I know! They must have spoken in Latin. It makes the most sense what with our spells being bastardized Latin.” 

“Ah, music,” Dumbledore says, wiping his eyes, and Zabini scoffs at his dramatics. “A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!” 

Prefects start calling for the first years, and they deftly avoid the forming mass of tiny, sleepy students and make their way down to the dungeons in a small group. 

They’re stalled at the entrance of the Common Room for a moment with no knowledge of the new password, but they’re rescued from their predicament by another group of older students. 

“It’s Boomslang.” Malfoy – named the Older in her mind, for he was Draco’s older cousin – informs them with a wink, and they, at long last, enter the place that will serve as their home until the next summer.

It was like a scene from a mysterious, underwater shipwreck, thanks to the large windows looking out into the depths of the Black Lake, where from time to time, bioluminescent fishes will flash by. The furniture, of black and dark green color, is elegant and tasteful, while the rough stone walls are not only beautifully carved but are also covered in tapestries depicting the adventures of famous Medieval Slytherins. 

It’s grand but quite cold, and Dahlia likes it that way. It may be nothing like the homey Gryffindor Common Room or Hufflepuff Basement or even the library-like Ravenclaw Tower, yet they wouldn’t change it for the world. 

They are soon joined by their new firsties, and she amuses herself by trying to pick out the ones she knew while the prefects talked. Draco Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle was the easiest, but Pansy Parkinson wasn’t much harder to identify, already looking all love-struck at the blond. Theodore Nott was much harder, and she eventually spots him in a corner, hidden behind the bulk of Millicent Bulstrode. Blaise Zabini stuck out like a sore thumb with his Mediterranean skin tone in the middle of all the English pasty white.

With the customary yearly greetings – and warnings – done, everyone starts dispersing to their respective dorms, yawning and shuffling. 

“Good night,” James tells her sleepily. 

“Good night.” She repeats to him and stifles a yawn. 

Their dormitories, circularly-shaped and intended for five people, are much like the Common Room, with sophisticated dark furniture and carved but rough stone walls, yet lacking the tapestries. The four-poster beds are draped with green silk hangings and equally green silk bed sheets, while the floor is obscured by a Persian rug depicting intertwined silver snakes. But her favorite part was the ceiling. After a small extension of stone just above the beds, it gave way to a large dome of glass that colored the room in a green tinge. It was gorgeous.  

Their trunks had already arrived, so she quickly starts transferring her things to the big chest standing at the foot of her bed. She knew she would never get properly unpacked if she didn’t do it now. 

The other girls do the same, speaking in whispers and softly giggling. They were all tired. 

She taps with her wand the closest silver-wrought lantern to dim the light and slips under the warm sheets of her bed. The hangings slide close, muting the noise of her roommates also getting ready for bed, and sleep claims her quickly. 

She doesn’t dream.  

Chapter Text

The next morning, she’s the first one up. After a short trip to the bathroom, where she spends most of her time fighting with her hair, she slings her schoolbag over her shoulder and leaves the dormitory just as the other girls start stirring awake. The Curse of the Potter hair is real, guys. Trying to tame it every morning was an exercise of patience, and cutting it short would be a horrible fashion decision on her part, so she was stuck with Sleekeazy's Hair Potion and Scalp Treatment potion.

James was already waiting for her, impatiently pacing in the Common Room. 

“Morning.” He greets.

“Good morning to you too.” She replies. “Shall we?” 

The Great Hall is still almost full when they arrive with the Slytherin table as the only exception.

For generations, older Slytherins had passed down their knowledge of secret corridors and passageways to their newest Housemates at the start of every year. As a result, while a student from another House might take fifteen minutes to walk from the Great Hall to the dungeons, they only needed five. They were Kings of the Hogwarts’ Basement, having left no corner unexplored, no stone overturned in their investigations. Their small kingdom was full of secrets only they knew, and that would remain so for as long as the castle stood. Plus, they got to have loads of fun watching the other Houses huff and puff as they attempt to reach the potions classroom in time, as they leave much later and still arrive earlier than them. 

She suspected Salazar Slytherin or some other powerful Slytherin had been a cold bastard that hated wasting more time than needed walking from place to place and had decided to fix the problem by literally carving shortcuts into the walls of Hogwarts. It was a very nice perk for the rest of them.

The same principle applied to their mornings. They were able to sleep in and still have ample time to eat, unlike the tower-dwelling Gryffindors and Ravenclaws which is why their table only filled up fully about half an hour before classes began. 

Hufflepuffs were cheats who lived next to the kitchens, so they didn’t count. 

Breakfast is a lively affair, the tables laden with porridge, toast, eggs and bacon, and pitchers of pumpkin juice which she avoided in favor of a cup of freshly brewed black tea. That drink was vile, and she is never touching it again. 

Eventually, the House Heads start moving along the tables handing out the course schedules.

“Miss Potter.”

She looks up from her plate. “Hello, Professor Snape.”

Severus Snape’s physical appearance really wasn’t as bad as Rowling had portrayed him. His skin was sallow only because he spent so much time in the dungeons brewing, and similarly, his hair was oily only due to the fumes from his potions. And his nose wasn’t that big, either. Very Jewish.

His personality… Well, he’d never treated her badly, despite being a Potter and as such his nemesis’ daughter. He seemed mostly content to ignore her as long as she caused him no trouble. He had been more attentive to her during the first year, but he had been probably looking for signs of her father’s behavior in her. She supposed her Slytherin sorting had thrown him and had made him more willing to really see her and not a female James Potter copy with Lily’s eyes. The lack of glasses had possibly helped too. 

Moreover, his teaching style wasn’t bad. In the books, Harry’s dislike for the man had colored his descriptions of him, she had decided two potion classes in. He was strict, yes, but it was because he needed to be. Historically, potion classes had one of the highest death tolls along with Care of Magical Creatures. It was a highly precise art where a single wrong step could spell disaster not only for the brewer but for those around him too. A pinch more of an ingredient than needed could lead to an explosion. Stirring in the wrong direction could lead to poisonous fumes. Chopping instead of mincing could turn an otherwise perfectly good Pepperup into something that will boil alive the one drinking it instead of merely warming them up. Professor Snape couldn’t afford to be nice. Especially not to dunderheaded Gryffindors who threw fireworks into cauldrons full of unstable and potentially explosive liquid. 

He passes her a piece of parchment and moves on, cloak flaring dramatically behind him. Now that was something to admire. He made it look so easy, but she’s caught more than one person attempting to recreate it with no success. She had money bet on it being a spell of some sort. If a man could invent a curse that could cut a person open, he could definitely invent such a charm for his cloak. 

“Muggle Studies first…” 

“Be grateful, I’ve got Arithmancy first thing this morning, instead.” She tells James, returning her attention back to her timetable. “And then we’ve got Care of Magical Creatures together with the Gryffindors.”  

“Potions and Defense are with them too.” He grumbles in reply. “At least, Herbology and Transfiguration is with Ravenclaw.” 

“They always put us with Gryffindor,” Burke says. “You’d think they’d have learned by now.”

They laugh, thinking of the various explosions that happened during their two years of schooling. Some have been accidents, that’s true, but others? Not so much.  

It helped when Professor Snape was willing to turn a blind eye when it was his Slytherins doing mischief. 

And it wasn’t anything too dangerous. They’d learned their lesson concerning that too. 

Pucey is acting out Alicia Spinet’s frankly hilarious reaction to her Babbling Beverage splattering all over her as they leave the Great Hall when someone interrupts with a loud exclamation. “What are you doing here?!” 

“Going to school. Honestly, what else would I be doing here, Harry?” She steps to the side of the doors leading to the Great Hall, mindful of the coming and going of the other students. 

“You’re a wizard?” He splutters sounding shocked. 

“A witch, actually, but yes, I have magic.” She peers at her brother in concern. “Is everything alright?” 

“NO!” He almost shouts. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I wasn’t allowed to at first. And then you got your letter.” She explains, bewildered. She’s absolutely certain Hagrid told him their parents were wizards, and she had been disappearing to a mysterious school she never spoke about since she turned eleven. It seemed fairly obvious to her even if no one straight up told him. “I thought you knew.” 

“How long did you know about this?” He demands. “How long did you know about magic?” 

“Oh, Harry.” She says helplessly. “Always. One of my earliest memories is of Mum making my toys dance in the air for me.” In this life anyway. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asks again, only this time with less anger and more betrayal. 

“Yeah, why didn’t you tell him?!” Ron pipes up from beside him, indignantly. 

“Because Dumbledore didn’t want me to tell you. He wanted you to have a normal childhood.” She defends herself. Naturally, it was more complicated than that, but she really didn’t want to get into this in the middle of the Entrance Hall during breakfast. Or while Harry was eleven. Actually, it was a conversation she wasn’t planning on having with him for a long while yet. 

“With the Dursleys?” Harry says incredulously, and she winces. 

That hurt. She knew she hadn’t been the best sister, but she had thought Harry had been at least somewhat happy. 

“Listen, Potter,” James suddenly interjects harshly while the others threateningly finger their wands. “I don’t know about you, but we’ve got classes to get to. Save this for later. Much later.”

Faced with eight or so older Slytherins, the two first-year lions back off, and walk away, shooting them angry glances. She stands watching them, clutching the strap of her bag. 

“I think I just ruined his very first day of school.” She says glumly. 

Zabini sneers. “It’s not your fault, Potter. Your brother’s a Gryffindor idiot, that’s all.” 

“Thanks.” She replies in a dry voice. 

James gives her a one-arm hug. “We can talk about this after class if you want. Get Ava too. She’ll know what to do.”

“No.” She smiles gratefully at him. “It’s fine. I’ll see you in Care.” 

Despite previously having been excited about her Arithmancy class, she finds herself dragging her feet now. She’d hoped to fix her relationship with Harry when he started attending Hogwarts. She’d imagined mentoring him through his classes and subtly helping in his adventures with her almost Potterhead-level knowledge while staying out of them. She thought he’d understand why she hadn’t told him about the truth about their parents and their magic. A month, she had assumed, would be enough for him to calm down from his justified anger. But that he hadn’t even realized that she also could use magic… She hadn’t been hiding it either, leaving her textbooks and assignments lying around everywhere in their shared room when she was home. How in the world could he have missed that? 

“He doesn’t look much like you,” Pucey observes. 

She startles slightly, having forgotten she wasn’t alone. “Who, Harry? Everyone always says we look like our father.” Though she didn’t quite agree. Her brother, maybe. Her? She thought she looked more like Katie McGrath, for some reason. A Morgana Katie McGrath before she went mad. 

“He’s got your coloring, but you’ve got that casual Black elegance he doesn’t.”

 “My great-grandmother, the one who married Henry Potter, was a Black.” She recalls faintly. 

“We know,” Zabini says. “You simply must read Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy, Potter.”

“I am.” She protests because she’s surrounded by high-class pure-bloods day in and day out. “There’s a lot to get through, and I’m always getting distracted by more interesting reading material.” 

Pucey sighs sympathetically. “That thing’s a bore.”

She gives him a pitying glance. Most pure-blood heirs had to memorize their entire family tree by the time they were six. It was at times like those she was glad to be part of the blood-traitors community. No unrealistic expectations from her parents for one had they not been offed by Voldemort.

In the Arithmancy classroom, she joined by Ava who takes one look at her, and her mouth thins into a line. “Something happened.” She deduces.

She shakes her head, reaching into her leather satchel for her things. It was her third most expensive possession, bought in a muggle store for about a hundred-and-twenty pounds, and then charmed with an Undetectable Extension Charm by a wizard for a couple of Galleons, but it was extremely useful and well worth the money she paid for it. That she could use it in both worlds without attracting strange looks was just a bonus. 

“Something must have happened.” Ava insists. “Was it your brother? Is he upset that you’re in Slytherin?”

Her second most expensive possession was a set of intricate fountain pens with cartridges of different colored ink she also bought in an antique muggle store. After a year of dealing with quills, which needed meticulous maintenance and often broke, she’s called it quits and never looked back. Archaic nonsense, she thought. It was the same reason she used parchment for only the final copy of the homework she was going to hand in to her teachers. All her notes were taken on lined paper which she kept carefully organized in leather-bound three-ring binders. Why leather-bound, exactly? Well, she did have appearances for her to keep up around her more Muggle-hating Housemates, and plastic would have looked a little out of place. 

“Dahlia, either you tell me, or I will ask James. You know he’ll tell me.”

“Harry is angry at me for not telling him about magic.” She gives up. 

Ava tilts her head, confused. “Why didn’t you?” 

“Because I wasn’t allowed too.” She hisses aggravated. “When Dumbledore left us at the Dursleys he specifically told me not to utter a word about wizards to Harry. He even cast a spell on me to make sure I wouldn’t. Hell, I couldn’t even write it.”

Professor Vector enters the classroom, and Ava turns to the front. “We’ll talk about this later.” She promises with steely determination. “This conversation is not over.” 

She groans in reply, defeated.

Arithmancy turns out to be very much like muggle mathematics were using the magical properties of numbers and many complicated equations competent Arithmancers could predict even the future. It had nothing of the wooliness Divination had and was heavily based on logic and probabilities. She could see why it would become Hermione’s favorite class. It was very logical. 

Their teacher, Professor Septima Vector, reminded her of Professor McGonagall, a strict and no-nonsense kind of witch. Already, by the end of their first class, they had a pile of complicated homework assigned for the next week.

Most of the students came out of the classroom looking shell-shocked and were clearly regretting taking the class. Except for the muggle-born; they looked smug.

“I knew something of our so-called useless pre-Hogwarts education will be helpful.” One says to his friend gleefully. 

Their Care of Magical Creatures teacher was Silvanus Kettleburn who was missing all his limbs but an arm and half of one leg. He was reckless but brilliant, and best of all, he didn’t teach from the Monster Book of Monsters, preferring Newt Scamander’s harmless Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. She’ll miss him when he retires. 

It was unfortunate they had to share the class with Gryffindor. They were starting with Nifflers, Professor Kettleburn’s favorite creatures, and perhaps one of hers now too – they were just so cute! – and the Weasley twins along with Jordan had looked frighteningly contemplative amidst their disruptive horsing around. She had spent more time than she’d liked watching them suspiciously. They had a bit of a rivalry going on, you see… Nothing serious, but it had landed each of them, including her to her slight chagrin, in detention more than once.

It had all begun by them pranking her in the middle of lunch in the Great Hall the second week of school. She had her pride and was having a tough time getting along with her new Housemates because of her so-called tainted blood, so she had snapped under the pressure and humiliation. Turns out, the twins hadn’t liked being cursed right back. They upped their game and pranked her again. She cursed them. By Christmastime, they were dueling in corridors. 

It was worth noting she was never to one who initiated the conflict. She was better than that, both as an adult albeit only mentally and a Slytherin, though she wasn’t above dishing out revenge. She could hold grudges pretty damn well if she felt like it, and boy did she dislike the Weasley Twins and Lee Jordan by association. 

By the end of the day, she was feeling content again, and it was with a smile she enters an unused classroom in a long-abandoned wing of the fourth floor after dinner. 

She passes the few remaining desks that had been pushed to the side and walks up the stairs that lead to what used to be a teacher’s office. When they had found it, it had been a small, mostly bare room but ever since they had started using it for themselves, it had slowly changed. The shelves along the walls had been filled with interesting books, remnants of the professor who once occupied the space and who had a wide-ranging interest while the floor was covered by a plush carpet and what must have been several dozen cushions of various color and size. A fire now permanently burned in the fireplace, and in the corner, an enchanted phonograph played soothing music. It was messy and cluttered, and it might not have been the Room of Requirement, but neither did it need to be. 

She and her friends were the only ones who knew about the room except for the Weasley Twins against who the place was heavily warded. The last time they tried coming in, it ended with a trip to the hospital wing for them. It was sometimes nice to have pure-blooded associates despite their rampant bigotry. Got you access to otherwise untouchable recourses like their well-stocked family libraries. 

Ava was already curled up in one of the two lumpy couches they had managed to transfigure after many trials and errors, and Kyle had claimed the other, so she drops down on a pile of cushions instead. Behind her, James closes the door and joins her on the floor with a relieved exhale. 

“Finally.” He grunts, stretching. “I’ve missed this place.” 

“I think we all did,” Ava says, and with a wave of her wand and a few muttered words fills four floating mugs with hot cocoa. She grabs one of them from the air when it drifts by and blows on the steam carefully.

“I hear we need to have quite the talk today,” Kyle says, eyeing her prudently over his own mug. Evidently, his sister had filled him in. 

James sits up, leaning his elbows on his crossed knees, and Ava uncurls on her couch, sitting properly and looking attentive. She wasn’t getting out of this one. 

“When You-Know-Who killed our parents, my godparents were already dead, and Harry’s turned out to be a Death Eater.” She begins haltingly, deliberating on what she should and should not say. Sirius Black, for example, was innocent, but she had no proof and no way to explain why she thought him as such. “I believe we were supposed to have gone to the Longbottoms – Alice was Harry's godmother – but…” Here, she shrugs helplessly. The fate of Alice and Frank Longbottom was not an unknown one to most British wizards. “Maybe they suspected they would be attacked because when Hagrid found us, he didn’t take us to them, but rather to our muggle aunt’s house. There, he met Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall.”

“What was McGonagall doing there?” James asks, furrowing his eyebrows. 

“I have no idea.” She shakes her head, staring into her mug. “You have to understand, I was three-years-old, exhausted, and terrified. I wasn’t in any state to question anything. It’s a wonder I remember as much as I do.”

“What happened next?” Ava prompts. 

“Dumbledore made me promise to never speak a word of magic to Harry because he was afraid that being famous for something he didn’t remember, for something he did before he was walking or talking, would be enough to turn his head. He cast a spell on me to make certain I wouldn’t accidentally blab, gave me Harry and a letter for the muggles, and sat me down on the doorstep. Next thing I know, I’m being woken half-frozen by Aunt Petunia’s terrified scream in the morning.”

“He left you in an enchanted sleep on a doorstep, at night, in November, with no blankets or warming charms, with a baby and a single letter to explain your presence to the muggles?” Ava exclaims horrified. “He expected them to take you in just like that? Did he ever check if they were able to afford to take care of two more children? Muggles do use money, correct?” 

“Yes, they use money, they’re not animals. But I don’t know if they could afford it.” She says.

The Dursleys weren’t filthy rich, but they used to be a stable middle-class family. And while she was not entirely certain, she did think that her and Harry’s presence started straining their finances in the long run. Why else would Aunt Petunia start working part-time as a secretary? Raising three children at the same time wasn’t easy, and especially not when two of them had been unwanted in the first place. Dudley had still been spoiled rotten, of course, but he received piles of presents only on his birthdays and for Christmas, and they never reached the numbers Rowling’s had claimed they did. What was it again, thirty-six? Thirty-seven? 

It did explain some of their behavior Harry had described in the books, though. And she had born witness to some occurrences that her brother had been too young to remember but had explained much of the rest. For instance, the cupboard under the stairs. When they had first arrived, he’d been so scared of everything and everyone he’d spent days screaming for their parents. He only calmed down once he crawled into the cupboard and had locked himself in there by accident when Aunt Petunia had been cleaning the house. The Dursleys had been so thankful for the quiet when they had found him again that they had set up a crib for him in there when he’d restarted his screaming fit the moment they tried to pull him out. She hadn’t complained either, because she’d finally been able to sleep properly without a pounding headache for the first time in weeks, and she had gotten him out and into her room eventually. Not the smallest either, which had been the one Harry moved into after his Hogwarts acceptance letters started arriving, and Dudley had kept his broken and unwanted toys in Rowling’s universe. Aunt Petunia had declared that bedroom too small for both Harry and her, and it was Dudley’s now. She shared the bigger one with Harry.

She knows; it had surprised her too.

The chores? That was because Harry couldn’t stop getting in trouble even as a young child. Leave him unattended for a second, and he’d be trying to make friends with a venomous adder. Or he’d be running into traffic because he spotted something shiny on the other side. Or he’d be eating candy given to him by some suspicious shady character. In short, Harry had almost gotten himself killed often. The chores kept him concentrated on his task and most importantly out of trouble, and they never were more than what he could safely handle. She’d supervised him herself when he had started learning how to cook at the age of eight. He was absolutely not preparing complex dishes by the time he’d turned three like she’d heard some people assume in her previous life in the Harry Potter fandom. 

Oh, and the food. What did the fans say again? The Dursleys were starving poor Harry? Depriving him of meals as a punishment? About that. Turns out, Harry had been a very picky little boy. Feeding him properly was an incredibly difficult task, so Aunt Petunia finally gave up and started giving him exactly what he wanted even if that meant feeding him bread and cheese every day. She had never been able to eat a lot, being able to live healthily off less food than most, but even that looked reasonable compared to the amounts Harry would eat without complaining. Everyone got so used to his empty plates at dinnertime they forgot he needed more food, and even Harry had never said a word when he got over his picky tendencies. 

And there had been no physical abuse from the adults either, although they certainly had not minced their words. There were absolutely no frying pans being swung to the head or burns from being forcefully pressed to the hot stove, and Uncle Vernon took out his belt only once or twice when they really had deserved it. He had also pulled his blows and hit their soft bottoms, not their backs. They weren’t scarred to hell and back. They hadn’t needed to hide broken bones or bruise marks from fat fingers from other adults. 

It was Dudley who was a bully, and he’d been smart enough to never do it in front of grownups, so if Harry had avoided confrontations he’d been fine. Besides, she made sure Dudley would know what would happen if he thought of continuing his little hunting game with Harry pretty early. He might have been heavier than her by far even then, but she had several years of martial arts under her belt from her previous life. Against a couple of little kids? They didn’t stand a chance. Dudley learned his lesson and never again went further beyond prodding and pinching. 

It hadn’t been great. Verbal and emotional abuse never was okay, but it could have been worse, and anyway, it had been mostly name-calling and badmouthing James and Lily with the occasional ‘lazy’ and ‘ungrateful’ and the ever-popular ‘freak’ thrown their way. The Dursleys might not have been parents of the year, and they might have been neglectful, but they were far from ‘the worst kind of muggles’ Professor McGonagall. Neither of them had turned into Obscurials, have they? Neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon were the second coming of Mary Lou Barebone. 

“Why Hagrid?” Kyle asks when his sister looks too dismayed to says anything else. 

“I don’t know.” She says heavily. “Truth to be told, the first one to find us was Sirius, and it’s only after he coaxed me out of my hiding place that Hagrid appeared. He said something about Dumbledore having sent him for us, so Sirius gave him his flying motorcycle and disappeared. It’s only after I returned to the Wizarding world that I learned what happened to him.” That last part was false, but how could she have known the truth being stuck with the muggles? She was trying to keep her knowledge from the books and movies secret. 

“Then why didn’t Black kill you? If he was a loyal Death Eater he should have finished the job for his Lord.” Kyle musses. 

“Never mind that,” James says impatiently. “The man was obviously mad. I want to know why you didn’t find another wizard to help you.”

“I couldn’t. It must have been a boundary spell, like the one they cast on little children to prevent them from wandering off. I couldn’t leave beyond a certain distance from the house. Drove the Dursleys mad too, before we figured it out. It only faded away once I received my first Hogwarts’ letter.” 

“How awful,” Ava whispers, clutching her mug close to her chest.

James gestures with his hands widely, almost spilling his hot cocoa. “This has to be illegal! You were essentially a prisoner of your own home!” 

She laughs bitterly. “It isn’t. Not for Dumbledore. He’ll claim it was for my own safety or the safety of the Boy-Who-Lived, and he’ll get away scot-free.”

“Not even with a slap on his wrist.” Kyle agrees with her.

Dumbledore was so well regarded by most wizards, few would be willing to believe he was in the wrong. They would say she was an ungrateful child who knew little of the world and didn’t understand the honor of having The Great and Powerful and Noble Albus Dumbledore worry about her well-being. She’d spent eight years of her life unable to step further than the local school, and there was nothing she could do about it. There had been no trips to the zoo or the movie theater. No restaurants, or shopping. Aunt Petunia had to measure her at home and buy clothes for her without knowing if they fit properly or if she would even like them. She always worried that the neighbors will know there was something wrong by realizing that her forever polite and respectful niece wore ill-fitting, outdated clothes. She’d made sure the Dursleys couldn’t say anything bad about her by working summer jobs and babysitting year-round throughout the neighborhood. It had been a little harder to fix her brother’s reputation. 

“Are you going to tell Harry about Dumbledore’s spells?” Ava inquires in a low voice several minutes later. They’d been all sitting deep in thoughts and had been unwilling to be the one to break the uneasy silence first.

“No. Not yet, at least.” She amends immediately. “In a few years, maybe. When he’s older. He doesn’t need to know Dumbledore was willing to go such lengths to keep us with the muggles he hates just yet.”

“And the other Slytherins? Will they give you grief over this?”

She snorts, amused, but doesn’t answer.

“They know how to be discreet,” James assures the siblings. “They’ll be curious, but they won’t ask. Family matters stay family matters.”

“That’s a relief.” Ava sighs, and takes a sip from her mug, before grimacing. It had gone cold.

“But what should I tell Harry?” She wonders. “He won’t forgive me without a good reason.”

“Tell him bad people were looking for him, hence Dumbledore hid you where they wouldn’t look,” Kyle suggests. “He didn’t let you speak of magic because he feared Harry would go looking for it alone and without protection and get killed.”

“I wouldn’t be lying either.” She hums considering it. “For all we know, that’s exactly why he gave us to the muggles. Death Eaters would have looked for him after their Lord’s death, and they would have never thought to look for our mudblood mother’s remaining family.”

Of course, she knew the real reason they went to the Dursleys was because of the alleged bond of blood charm Dumbledore has cast on Harry after Lily had sacrificed herself for him. As long as he called 4 Privet Drive home or until he turned seventeen, Harry could not be touched or harmed by Voldemort from the moment Aunt Petunia agreed to take him in. Only now that she thought about it… She had been so concerned with following the storyline she forgot one crucial thing. She existed. She was Harry’s closest blood-relative. There had been no need for the Dursleys. And that changed things.  

They could have just as easily stayed in the Wizarding World as long as they stayed together. If Dumbledore had been so concerned about Death Eaters he could have given them to some of his most trusted members of the Order of the Phoenix. God, she’d have happily accepted even Alastor Moody or Aberforth Dumbledore as an adoptive parent over the Dursleys. 

And if it was the fame he was worried about, then he could have changed their names until it was time for Harry to attend Hogwarts. With a few glamour charms and makeup, they could have been made virtually unrecognizable. 

Or they could have been sent out of the country to France, to China, to fucking Alaska! 

There had been no need for the Dursleys. From the beginning, Dumbledore knew Petunia Dursley would not cheerfully take in her magical nephew and niece. And particularly not after magic took away her sister, because despite their estranged relationship, she still loved her. Aunt Petunia would never let herself get close to them, never let herself love them because she would always be afraid they will also die. She would forever worry their magic protection – if it ever existed in the first place because how was she to know she wasn’t being lied to – will fail like it had failed for her sister and her family will suffer. That her husband and her son will die by magic, unable to protect themselves because she agreed to raise Lily’s children. 

She glowers into her cup feeling frustrated. Trying to accurately guess what Dumbledore was thinking was impossible. She could only accept it happened the way it did and move on. “I’ll give Harry some time to calm down. Maybe he’ll think of an explanation on his own.” She says without much hope.

Her friends exchanged doubtful glances. She glares at them, daring to say anything about her happy fantasy. They – smartly – don’t. Instead, Kyle pulls out his homework, and James falls over into the cushions with a dramatic groan, cocoa almost spilling everywhere again.

Everyone laughs, and the morose atmosphere is broken. Their own homework is quickly pulled out too, and they set themselves to completing it. That was the good thing about having a Ravenclaw upperclassman for a friend, they were never late handing their assignments in. Kyle made sure they had everything done almost as soon as it was assigned. He also made certain to check it over for any mistakes and proofread their essays. When he found the time while doing his own work perfectly, she had no idea. He was scarily efficient like that. 

On the plus side, they always had good marks and never had to cram for their exams last minute. 

Their very own Hermione Granger. Only less know-it-all teacher’s pet and more hardass honor roll student tutor. Both she and James knew the moment they attempted to have him do their work for them, he’d drop them like hot potatoes. He didn’t stand for that kind of shit. Predominantly, it was because he couldn’t bear putting up with stupid people. Needless to say, he found the majority of the school intolerable. She and James became friends with him only because they had befriended Ava first. He’d have never given them the time of the day otherwise.

Chapter Text

The first weekend since the beginning of school, she doesn’t go to the Great Hall for breakfast. Instead, she finds a still life with a bowl of fruit and tickles the pear painted upon it.

It giggles in response to her wiggling fingers and turns into a large green handle.

The painting swings open to reveal a gigantic, high-ceiling room with five wooden tables in the exact same position as the ones in the Great Hall, which coincidently happened to be right above them. They were all laden with food that was being sent to their counterparts for the enjoyment of the students and teachers. On the other end of the hall from the door stood an enormous brick fireplace permanently burning wood. The smell in the air was amazing, emitting from the many, many bubbling pots and pans standing on the counter-tops and stoves surrounding the stone walls.

“Miss Dally!” The house-elves – small beings standing between two to three feet tall with large, bat-like ears and protruding eyes – cry in their high and squeaky voices when she comes into the kitchen. She thinks they are distant relations of brownies rather than true elves. For her, real elves will always be Tolkien-like; beautiful and fair, immoral and proud creatures. Yes, she was an Orlando Bloom fangirl. And a Lee Pace one. And a Cate Blanchet and Liv Tyler one. And that’s only the ones that had appeared in movies. Don’t get her started on Glorfindel. Or Echtelion. Or Lúthien, and Gil-Galad, and Fingon, and the Sons of Fëanor, and all the rest who she will not name because it will take much too long. But not Tauriel. She does not know who that this. Such an elf does not exist. Nope.

She laughs, feeling delighted with the warm welcome. “Hello to you too.”

Herded past the tables to the fireplace by overeager elves, she’s sat at a smaller table in the corner of the room. It was specially reserved for the abysmally few students who thought of visiting the kitchens. 

“Your breakfast, missy!” Another elf trots up magically carrying in the air a large silver tray burdened with a teapot, a cup, a bowl with sugar cubes and tongs, and most importantly, in a medium cast-iron cocotte, a beautiful, wonderful, drenched in tomato sauce shakshuka with freshly baked pita bread on the side.

“Thank you, Kispy.” She says with an appreciative smile.

“We having a light strawberry risotto for lunch and shoyu ramen for dinner.”

Her smile widens. “My favorites.”

“Yes.” Kispy nods her head eagerly. “We having the broth for the ramen boiling on the stove since yesterday.”

“I can’t wait.” She tells them and pretends to suddenly remember something. “Oh, I can’t believe I forgot!” She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a rectangular object wrapped in brown paper.

The elves quiet down, and Pitts reaches out reverently with his spindly arms. She passes the package to him and watches cheerfully as he slowly tears the paper away.

“The Thous-and Re-cipe Chi-nese Cook-book by Glo-ria Bley Mil-ler.” He carefully sounds out. “The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook by Gloria Bley Miller.” He repeats for everyone’s benefit.

“That’s right.” She tells him. “Good job.”

“Eat your breakfast, Miss Dally.” He answers sternly and scampers towards a little platform stair. He puts their present on a bookstand, opened to the first page, and starts reading to the other elves as they returned to their work.

Despite eating little, she loved good food. Her former family was composed entirely of amateur home cooks who adored experimenting. Japanese, Chinese, American, Arabic, French, Mexican, Spanish, Italian… They loved it all. And after spending eleven years eating exclusively British food she had been getting desperate. The Brits weren’t known for their culinary prowess for a reason, after all. For someone who grew up regularly eating Indian curry, it was a touch too bland to truly enjoy. Though, to be fair, she’d never say no to a cup of strong tea. Without milk. And a teaspoon of sugar depending on her mood.

Aunt Petunia would never agree to food other than the good, proper kind – meaning English – in her kitchen. So, her very first year at Hogwarts, she brought two very important books with her in her luggage. More important to her than any of her textbooks. More important than the Dark Arts books she knew her Housemates were hiding in their trunks. She had big plans for them. Written by ‘the woman who taught Americans how to cook’ Julia Child, the two volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking were supposed to be the lifesavers of her taste buds. Seven-hundred-twenty-six pages long and containing five-hundred-twenty-four recipes, they were her last hope.

The prefects had been very surprised when a tiny first year – a very unpopular first-year – fearlessly approached them and demanded them to show her the way to the kitchens.

Whilst many students would have been unappreciative of a sudden menu change, the elves were delighted to try something new for themselves. She spent the first few lonely weeks of magic school before James came crashing into her life with the force of a Bludger teaching them how to read. They had been very attentive students if a little slow.

Since then, she came down to the kitchens to eat during the weekends. The elves were happy to share their food with her, and in return, she provided them with more cookbooks. No matter how often she reassured them she’d get them a new exemplar if one got damaged, they treated the books like the most precious of jewels, carefully locking them away in a cabinet when not in use. It made her both sad and pleased to see how they treated presents. Hermione had her heart in the right place, she just went about it wrong.

She’s wondered occasionally where they got some of their more exotic ingredients needed for some recipes, but she wasn’t going to ask. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth as the proverb goes.

On her way back to the Common Room, feeling full and content, she comes across Malfoy. Not Draco Malfoy, but his older cousin Ambrosius. It was an ambitious name for a wizard and one he did his best to lived up to. Prefect, candidate for Head Boy, top scorer of his year, brilliant at spells, and not a complete prat.

“There you are, Potter.” He says when he sees her. For once, he doesn’t have a knowing smile spread across his admittedly handsome face and she slows down, a frown sliding across her own.

“Is something wrong?” She asks.

He stops in front of her. “There are rumors your brother will be the Gryffindor’s Seeker.”

“I’m sorry?” She inquires faintly. It was as if she was suddenly drenched in cold water, her previously good mood washed away.

“During their flying lesson, Madam Hooch had to bring an injured student to the Hospital Wing,” Malfoy explains. “Draco taunted your brother and he followed him up in the air against Madam Hooch’s express orders. According to their classmates, he caught a Remembrall after a fifty-foot dive.”

“A what?” She whispers, already pale skin paling further.

“Professor McGonagall saw him and instead of punishing him as she should have, she decided to make him her team’s new Seeker.” The long-haired blond finished with a furious scowl.

She’d forgotten. It hadn’t seemed important in the grand scheme of things so she had forgotten. How was she supposed to remember every single small detail of the plot of a story she’d read about two decades ago?

But this was also Harry’s first brush with death in Hogwarts. The Voldemort possessed Quirrell tries to curse him off his broom during the first game, she remembers that now. Professor Snape tried to help him, but Hermione interrupted him. Thankfully, she had also interrupted Quirrell and Harry had been able to land. He had won the game by almost swallowing the Snitch while his broom jerked around uncontrollably. At least, that how she remembered it. She could be wrong, but she had the gist of it.

And didn’t Dobby send an enchanted Bludger after him the next year? Plus, that time with the Dementors…

“Potter?” Malfoy asks irritably.

“I’ll talk to him.” She mumbles distractedly, busy racking her memories for other instances of near-death by Quidditch. Didn’t something happen during some tryouts too?

“Please do so.” He tells her and sighs looking regretful. “I heard about your argument. I hope this doesn’t make things worse between you two.”

She pauses, startled out of her thoughts, and then shrugs, acting unconcerned. “He’ll forgive me eventually.”

“If you say so.” He looks unconvinced.

Fortunately, a pair of his friends appear from behind the corner of the hallway and he hurries over to them.

“Talk to your cousin too, Malfoy.” She calls over her shoulder as she also leaves. “That kind of behavior is unacceptable for a Slytherin.” 

“You’re the one who’s friends with a Hufflepuff,” Saunders calls back.

“She’s a Nott!” She yells turning the corner, and she hears her Housemates laugh in response.

Finding the Gryffindor Tower was not hard. All she had to do was ask a random portrait the way to the Fat Lady and she was led down some corridors and up some stairs exactly where she needed to be. As long as there was a portrait or a ghost around, it was impossible to get lost in Hogwarts. And if there wasn’t, one could always call for a house-elf for help. If they thought of it, of course. Most people forgot about their existence.

The Fat Lady was hung at the end of a hallway, clad in a pink silk dress, and dark hair curled into ringlets. She was overweight, but not to the point of Vernon Dursley and his sister Marge. Besides, in the Medieval Age being plump was a good thing and considered a sign of beauty. It showed that you had the wealth to often indulge in good food.

She approaches the portrait and the painted woman peers down at her, taking in her green tie. “No password, no entry.” She declares.

“I don’t need to go in.” She replies reassuringly. “Could you please tell Harry his sister wants to speak to him?”

“Oh!” The woman brightens. “That’s alright then. Please wait.” She ducks out from the canvas and disappears. A moment later, she reappears. “He’ll be along shortly.”

“Thank you, eh...” She stops, furrowing her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, but what’s your name?”

The woman cocks her head, surprised. “Everyone calls me the Fat Lady, dear.”

“I know. But Fat Lady,” Her mouth curls into a grimace of distaste. “can’t be your real name. It’s awfully offensive too, to call someone fat nowadays.”

“Rosamund.” The painted lady says quietly and sounding a bit teary. “No one’s asked my name in a long time.”

“And that’s a shame.” She tells her sincerely. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Rosamund whispers gratefully, and swings open.

Harry steps out, followed by Ron, both looking angry to see her. They were both dressed casually, and her brother had drying ink splattered on his fingers.

“I’ve been hoping to talk to Harry. Alone.” She says pointedly.

“Whatever you want to tell me, you can tell Ron too,” Harry answers stubbornly. The red-head beside him crosses his arms showing he was going nowhere.

Her eyes close as she prays for patience. “Very well.” She concedes unwilling to get into a fight over this. Her eyes open again and she frowns at her brother. “Please explain to me Harry, what in the world were you thinking? What possessed you to disobey a teacher in such a dangerous manner?”

“What are you talking about?” Ron demands.

“Your first flying lesson?” She reminds them. “Draco Malfoy throwing a Remembrall? You catching it after a fifty-foot dive?”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with you,” Harry says mulishly.

“It’s got to do with me, Harry,” She says patronizingly as if speaking to a little child. Her brother was certainly acting like it. “because I’m your older sister, whether you like it or not. You are my responsibility. Especially when you almost kill yourself.”

“I was fine!” He protests.

“You were.” She allows. “This time. You might not be so lucky next time. Professor McGonagall made you the Gryffindor Seeker?”

“Yes…” He answers guardedly.

“Here’s what you’re going to do.” She prepares herself for the explosion. “You’ll go to Professor McGonagall and thank her for not punishing you. Then, you will tell her you’ve thought it over, but you’re unfortunately not going to accept her generous offer.”

“What? No!” The two boys cry incredulously.

“You heard me.” She says uncompromisingly, planting her hands on her hips. “You’re too young. You don’t know how to fly. If you still want to play next year, you’ll do things properly by trying out with everyone else.”

“Harry is a brilliant flier!” Ron protests. “He caught Neville’s Remembrall and he’s never flown before, didn’t he?!”

“It could have been a fluke, it could have been natural talent.” She says. “Either way, it doesn’t mean he’s guaranteed to be able to do it again in a Quidditch game.”

“But I have!” Harry argues hotly. “During training with Wood. He threw golf balls and I caught all of them.”

“You don’t even have a broom. You can’t play with a school-issued one, they’re rubbish.” She tries.

“Professor McGonagall sent me one!” He exclaims smugly, looking as if he’s won the argument with that statement.

She doesn’t agree, lips thinning with sudden fury. “Did she?” She hisses angrily. Another thing she had forgotten.

“Yeah, a Nimbus Two Thousand!” Ron brags.

“First years aren’t allowed to own broomsticks.” She grinds out through clenched teeth.

“Professor Dumbledore made an exception for me,” Harry tells her.

“Oh, did he now?” She repeats, eyes flashing. “Of course, he did. You’re the precious Boy-Who-Lived after all.”

The boys shut up, realizing she was in a really bad mood.

“You’re not going to listen to me, Harry?” She asks mentally daring him to answer her unsatisfactory.

He set his jaw. “No. I’m going to play Quidditch.”

“Very well.” She smiles a smile that was more a baring of her teeth than anything else. “You want to do it this way. Alright, I can do that.”

She pulls out her wand from her satchel, and the two lions take a step back, pulling out their own. She gives them a condescending look.

“Invenio Minerva McGonagall.” A small, silvery light detaches from the tip of her wand. It bobbles in the air in front of her for an instant, then shoots down the corridor. “Come.” She says and sharply turns on her heels to march off after the light.

It leads them to a courtyard that Professor McGonagall was crossing, her arms full of parchment. She stops when she notices the light hovering around her.

“Professor McGonagall!” She calls loudly.

“What is it, Miss Potter?”

She walks up towards the older woman. “With all due respect, I wanted to ask you about allowing Harry on the Quidditch team.”

“You don’t agree?” She asks.

“No. In fact, I strongly disagree.” She answers. “First years are not allowed on the teams or own brooms for a reason.”

“Your brother has natural talent.” Professor McGonagall remarks carefully.

“And I do too.” She waves a hand dismissively. “We both inherited it from our father. Yet no one was asking me to join the Slytherin team in my first year. And had I wanted to play later, I would have had to try out with everyone else. Charlie Weasley had natural talent. He still had to try out in his second year.”

“Miss Potter –”

“He’s flown once, maybe twice in good weather.” She interrupts. “Experienced players get hurt! What are you going to do when Harry gets a Bludger to the head? What if he slips and falls because he’s unable to keep up with the older, stronger players in a game that lasts for hours in a thunderstorm?”

“Your brother understands the risks –” Professor McGonagall begins.

“He doesn’t!” She exclaims, throwing her hands in exasperation. “He’s an eleven-year-old boy! He didn’t know Quidditch was a thing before sitting down on the Hogwarts Express. Of course, he agreed to play when he was asked! Finally, it was something he was good at! The adults were even going to ask the Headmaster to bend the rules for him!” She mocks and turns towards her brother. “Harry, tell me, are you aware people died playing Quidditch?” He pales, showing that he was truly not aware. “Are you still willing to play knowing that?”

He gulps but nods obstinately. “I am.” He says.

“Then I don’t see the problem with letting him. No one had died on our pitch in decades.” Professor McGonagall announces.

“It doesn’t mean it can’t happen! Professor McGonagall,” Her voice raises in anger. “the problem here is not Harry! It’s your favoritism! Your blatant favoritism! Had you punished him as you should have, we wouldn’t be here discussing this!”

“Excuse me?” She asks icily.

The students that had stopped around them to watch them argue gasp audibly at her audacity.

“Had anyone else pulled the stun Harry did, they’d be spending the next month at least in detention with Mr. Filch!” She claims, gesturing her hand at the other students. “Harry, on the other hand, wasn’t punished, but instead rewarded! Had the rules bent explicitly for him! You bought him an insanely expensive broom as a present! The newest on the market! All because he almost killed himself for a pretty bauble!”

“You’re just jealous you’re not on a team!” Ron bellows, red splotches on his cheeks.

“Jealous? Me?” She laughs as if that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “Weasley, I couldn’t care less about Quidditch. I much prefer racing, thank you.”

“Dahlia is right.” Kyle emerges from the quickly growing crowd. “This is obvious favoritism. Professor McGonagall, is it because he’s one of your favored lions? Or is it because he’s the Boy-Who-Lived?”

The woman looks very uncomfortable under the stares of many angry students who felt the same. Many of them Quidditch players who had to wait until their second year to try out for their respective teams.

“You’re teaching him that he’s allowed to break rules!” She says more calmly now that someone was supporting her. She was faintly embarrassed for her loss of composure. “That there aren’t any bad consequences when he does. That they aren’t there for a good reason. That it’s alright for him to be reckless with his own life! That he’d be rewarded for it, even!”

“You want him punished?” The older woman asks astonished.

“Yes! No! I don’t know.” She flounders. “I don’t want him rewarded for bad behavior. There’s a difference.”

“He helped his friend,” Kyle says. “That’s good. But he disobeyed Madam Hooch to do it. Had he not been as talented as he was, he would have broken several of his bones if not outright killed himself. I don’t see how that is praise-worthy. I would have been livid if Ava was the one to do it.”

“As their older siblings, it is our responsibility to keep them safe.” She affirms. “You should have also asked his guardians for permission before allowing him on the team. It’s only the right thing to do. And somehow, I don’t think Aunt Petunia would have agreed.”

“They are muggles.” Professor McGonagall tells her gently.

Ah yes, and here comes the prejudice. Not that McGonagall was among the bigots – consciously, anyway, she had her moments too – the woman was simply reminding her that technically the Dursleys didn’t have any say in their lives according to the Ministry. As orphans, they had magical guardians; adult wizards their parents had chosen to raise them in case of their untimely deaths.

“Alright, then you should have asked Sirius Black. He is Harry’s godfather and thus magical guardian with our parents died.” She said uncompromisingly and with that she knew she’d won. No one was going to contact Sirius Black in Azkaban and asks him if the godson they thought he wanted dead could play Quidditch a year early. Funnily enough, despite being incarcerated for life, no one had the foresight to officially remove his guardianship. She’d checked with the goblins. Must have been because he hadn’t had a real trial, so the problem had slipped through the cracks unnoticed.

Dumbledore could play the in loco parentis card, but this wasn’t an emergency, and it wouldn’t hold up if she decided to really do something about it. She wasn’t above going to court if needed. Gotta love the Slytherin connections. 

Professor McGonagall pales while the crowd murmurs. Most of them knew who Sirius was, but they hadn’t known that he was Harry’s godfather too. It was more Order of the Phoenix only kind of information. “How did you…?”

She shrugs in response. “I was three, I remember some things.”

“Who’s Sirius Black?” Her brother asks curiously.

“Not now, Harry.” She dismisses him and misses his furious look.

“Very well.” Professor McGonagall finally acquiesces. “I see where I went wrong. You have my apologies, Miss Potter, Mr. Potter. I had gotten carried away hoping Slytherin won’t flatten us again this year. Twenty points to Slytherin for bringing this to my attention.” There is a bit of laughter from the crowd as they remember the last disastrous Slytherin vs. Gryffindor game. “Mr. Potter will not be participating in Quidditch-related activities until next year.”

“He will also give his broom to me for safekeeping, and use the school brooms which have appropriate safety charms for beginners if he wishes to fly.” She interjects. She knew her brother. She’d been in his head, almost literally too. He was stubborn and if she didn’t take away his Nimbus, he would have continued flying on it, putting himself in unnecessary danger.

A grimace crosses her face. “Should have mentioned parental consent from the beginning.” She mutters to herself. “Would have saved us from this whole spectacle.”

Kyle chuckles, having overheard her.

“You can’t take his broom!” Ron complains. “It’s not yours to use.”

“I don’t need another broom, Weasley.” She scoffs in response. “Much less one meant for Quidditch players. I have a perfectly suitable Siberian Arrow already.”

Harry scowls at her, really unhappy and she suspects he was going to argue. She steels herself for yet another argument.

“If the broom is not in Miss Potter’s possession in an hour it will be fifty points from Gryffindor and a month of detention with me, Mr. Potter.” Professor Snape drawls from behind the crowd of students, and they part in front of him like the sea parted in front of Moses.

The fight visibly drains out of Harry, though he still glares at them angrily.

Professor McGonagall gives her one last unreadable look and walks away. The crowd starts dispersing once they realize the show was over.

Harry storms off, followed by Ron. She doesn’t bother calling after them, slumping with a long heavy sigh instead, and passing a hand over her face tiredly. So much for giving her brother time to calm down. He wasn’t going to forgive her for this for months. Serves her right for acting like a rash Gryffindor and not thinking her actions through. She could have done this in Professor McGonagall’s office at the minimum, and not in public.

She wasn’t wrong in forbidding Harry to play Quidditch. It wasn’t incredibly relevant to the plot except getting him almost killed a few times. He could always play the following year if it was that important to him. She was just keeping him safe as a good sister should. No one was going to let a natural driver participate in a NASCAR race the first time he sat behind a wheel, so why should she let her brother play in an equally dangerous sport without giving him time to truly learn how to fly beyond just trusting his instincts? She was highly aware anything that could go wrong will go wrong and that first Quidditch game Harry could have truly fallen a hundred feet in the air had she not gotten involved. And he did fall during the third year she thinks, but there was nothing she could do about that yet.

Kyle squeezes her shoulder supportively and rejoins his Ravenclaw year-mates.

Before she can also leave the courtyard, a velvety voice sounds above her. “Miss Potter, if you will please come with me.”

She catches herself before she can look up at the inscrutable dark eyes of Professor Snape, focusing at a point above his right ear, and sighs again. “Yes, sir.”

Hopefully, he wasn’t too angry, and she wouldn’t spend the rest of the year scrubbing cauldrons by hand.

In his office, a gloomy and dimly-lit room with the shadowy walls lined with large glass jars filled with various potion ingredients, the man brews her a cup of tea and adds several drops of Calming Drought into it when he puts it down in front of her from a labeled glass phial.

They sit at his desk in silence for a long moment as she sips slowly her drink.

“You have your mother’s temper.” Professor Snape finally says.

She looks up from her cup interestedly, concentrating on the man’s hooked nose. “Really?”

“Yes.” He nods. “Particularly when she was a child. She got better at controlling herself as we age.”

“You knew her, sir?” She asks though she full well knew that he did.

“We grew up in adjacent neighborhoods.”

She tilts her head to the side as old memories flash across her mind. There were yelling and angry sparks thrown from a threateningly brandished wand. “Mum often got mad at Uncle Paddy. And Uncles Gid and Fab too.” She smirks sadly. “It was the pranks, I think.”

Silence returns, the only sounds the ticking of a clock and the bubbling of a potion in a corner of the office.

“I’m sorry.” She eventually says.

“Minerva was wrong.” The man states. “But you weren’t right too.”

She nods in complete agreement. “I didn’t think it through, I know that. I realize I should have done it in private. I just got angry and lost my head.”

Professor Snape laces his long, thin fingers together on the table. “What precisely angered you?” He inquires calmly.

“Would you believe me if I said I don’t know?” She shrugs. “The favoritism, maybe? That she was going to let an eleven-year-old boy play a dangerous game hundreds of feet in the air after seeing him fly the once? Letting him off without punishment after he disobeyed a person of authority? Hell, even buying that Nimbus for him.”

She stops speaking, the man sitting in front of her patiently waiting for her to gather her thoughts. In the book Harry really did let his narrow-mindedness paint his descriptions of the people around him, she noticed not for the first time. Severus Snape cared for his students, you just needed to look hard for it. Look extremely hard for it.

“Her lack of concern for his safety.” She eventually says and mulls that idea over. She didn’t know where it had come from, but it sounded right. “No one died in decades on Hogwarts’ pitch, that’s true, but it doesn’t mean there hadn’t been plenty of accidents both on and off it. Students aren’t above hexing each other in hallways when things got tense. As a first-year, Harry wouldn’t have been able to defend himself or retaliate against older students. Oliver Wood had been knocked unconscious for a week two minutes into his very first match. A similar hit would have injured Harry even worse, maybe permanently. One of the French Chasers splattered himself all over the field during the last Quidditch World Cup game. She knew that. Anyone who follows Quidditch should know that if I, who doesn’t care for Quidditch, knew that.”

“You’re worried about him.” Professor Snape notes.

She silently nods. None of the books or movies have ever mentioned anything of the sort happening that she recalled, but it didn’t mean it didn’t. Those incidents might simply not be relevant to the overall plot, that’s all. She couldn’t protect her brother from some things, most notably the Dark Lord, but this wasn’t one of them. She also cared, dammit, and was asking for a little less near-death experiences – ones that could be easily avoided, no less – really too much to ask for? You couldn’t live in close proximity with someone for more than a decade and not get attached.

The man hesitates before asking. “Do you believe the Dark Lord is still alive? You were there. You saw what happened.”

She blinks and then smiles. No one had asked her that before. Everyone seems to forget she had been there that day and had seen what happened through a barely-there open crack in the door of the wardrobe she had hidden herself in. Sure, she’d been scared out of her wits, but it was such an iconic scene! How in the world could she miss it, when she had a chance to see it in real life?

“You were there that night too.” She counters mildly. “What do you think, sir?”

Snape’s hands visibly tighten and something inscrutable flashes across his face. “You saw?”

She inclines her head. “There was a black wraith that fled the house after he cast the Killing Curse and it backfired. I do not believe he is dead. He will be back one day and he will want revenge. That’s why I worry. Harry will be his first target.” She says instead of acknowledging that she had indeed seen the man crying over her mother’s body. 

“A black wraith?” The Professor grabs the lifeline she had provided him like a drowning man.

“Yes, a being made of smoke that rose from the robes left behind after explosion. There was no body.” She informs him.

Professor Snape frowns severely. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Who would believe me?” She asks. “I was three. They’d say I imagined the whole thing. Besides, the ones who needed to know already knew.”

Snape presses his thin lips together and stands. “There will be no punishment this time, Miss. Potter. Do not ever speak to a professor in that tone of voice again. You will go and apologize to Professor McGonagall, and I will check.”

She can recognize a dismissal when she sees one. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” She murmurs and retreats from the office.

Chapter Text

She was right. Things between her and Harry don’t get better. He avoids her so well she momentarily wonders if the Weasley twins had given him the Marauder’s Map ahead of schedule, before spotting them one day suspiciously bent over a piece of yellowing parchment with moving ink. She quickly hurries out of there, because she had also pissed off the entirety of Gryffindor and broken the uneasy start-of-the-year truce between their two Houses when she had denied them their new Seeker. As a result, their two Houses were both on edge, always on the lookout for hexes and jinxes flying in their direction when traveling in corridors or loitering in public spaces like the library, courtyards, or the Great Hall. No one dared moved alone.

Still, she doesn’t regret it. She tells herself Harry will understand when he grows up and goes about her day as usual. Until he does, she’ll do her best to keep him safe despite all the ordeals he will have to go through, and in any case, for the moment, she was more concerned with the quickly upcoming Halloween Feast than with wasting her precious time trying to reconcile with her moody brother when he made it clear he wasn’t interested. 

Once, she’d loved the holiday. It wasn’t the candy or the trick-or-treating that did it for her, it was the dressing-up part of it that she enjoyed. She’d often make her own costumes out of stuff she or her family already had in their closets. Find a shirt with a rock band featured on it from her father that hung on her like a dress, pantyhose from her mother, her own Dr. Martens, safety pins chained together into a necklace, unnaturally colored lipstick, dark mascara and eyeliner, and a beany to top it all off, and she’s costumed herself into a punk rock enthusiast without spending a dime. Or if she takes another of her father’s shirts again, this one of thick fabric with vertical blue and white stripes, she could turn herself into a sailor girl, easy-peasy lemon squeezy. It had been fun, creative, and often a family thing. Now, she had to look forward to five years of danger that for some inane reason often decided to make themselves known on the 31^st of October dramatically. This year, there would be Quirrell and his troll, next year, the basilisk and the diary, fifth year will introduce the ‘feared mass murderer’ Sirius Black, and in her sixth year, Harry will be chosen for the Triwizard Tournament. At least, the seventh year will only have Umbridge to deal with for the most part until Voldemort lures her brother to the Department of Mysteries towards the end and kills his godfather in the process. It’ll be a nice break. She would not be able to concentrate on her very important N.E.W.T.s if she also had to keep her brother from running off to get himself killed with his friends in various horrid ways at the same time.

But she digresses. Back to the matter at hand. This year’s Halloween. Troll, Voldemort-possessed-Quirrell – she calls him Quirrellmort for short in her mind – and the forming of the Golden Trio.

What’s more, it just so happens to be today, because wow does time fly when you have something to busy yourself with. In her case, it’s trying not to end up in the hospital wing again because a Gryffindor had cursed her knees backward, and trying to avoid detention when she covers him in stinking pustules in revenge. He’d made her miss Charms, that jerk.

And she had plans for the night too. Fighting XXXX Beasts was not on her itinerary.

Normally, the entirety of Slytherin and more than a few from the other Houses, sneak out after the Feast to leave for special locations where they continued their celebrations outside Hogwarts borders. They had to do it in secret because Dumbledore Did Not Approve. He never did with old pureblood traditions.

Halloween was one of such.

Well, to be exact, Samhain was. Halloween was what it became after the Roman Catholic Church and other muggles were done with it. It also had been celebrated at Hogwarts until Dumbledore became Headmaster, forbid anything even remotely traditional, and established the first Muggle Studies class. He said it was to help muggle-borns adapt to the Wizarding World easier, but everyone knew it was a lie.

For a wix to be forbidden from participating at a festival akin to Samhain was like telling a Muslim woman she wasn’t allowed to wear her hijab. It was like telling a Jewish man his kippah was a prohibited item, that a Catholic couldn’t attend Church every Sunday, and that a Sikh’s kirpan was banned from the school’s premises because it was considered a weapon. No wonder the old families hated him. He literally told them he didn’t approve of their religion, that it was inherently Dark, and since he taught his muggle-born students to think the same, they grew up to shun anyone who believed otherwise. To them, they were all irredeemable, ignorant, inbred bigots who practiced evil magic and nothing more. In this way, Dumbledore was slowly, but systematically eradicating their entire culture. With the numbers of traditionalists present in Britain steadily decreasing, soon there would no one to continue practicing the Sabbats like Samhain and Beltain and Imbolg and Lughnasadh and Mabon and Ostara… In addition, she had the feeling if Dumbledore had his wish, any book describing pureblood customs will be burned or locked up in deep, well-guarded vaults to avoid ‘tainting’ future generations.

A load of rubbish, it was. She was of the option the muggle-borns had the responsibility to learn pureblood culture, not the other way around, although the latter could make a little effort to get to know their new compatriots too. They were the ones entering a new society. This all gave her white settler in America versus native indigenous tribe vibes. Or you know, faint Hitler versus the Jews. Not a pleasant feeling at all.

It wasn’t like there were bloody human sacrifices at every celebration. They were civilized people, such a thing hadn’t happened in a very long time except at Death Eater gatherings, and those were only a small portion of the population. Dumbledore should know better than to paint them all with the same brush.

Samhain was a festival that marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. Commencing on the evening of the 31^st of October, it continued into the 1^st of November from sunset to sunset. It was one of the purebloods’ most important festivals.

They believed that particular date marked the day when portals to the Otherworld opened, allowing the dead to return to the world of the living for a short while through the thinned Veil, and celebrated with great gatherings and feasts, bonfires and occasional animal sacrifices, and of course, dances and disguises.

The bonfires were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers, and yes, there were rituals involving them. Rituals to purify things. One of them included jumping through the scorching flames, or simply passing between two fires that stood side-by-side. When they burned out, the youngest of the participating children scattered the ashes to the wind in all four directions.

There were even divination rituals that were said to work even for those who did not possess the gift on that night. She was curious to try one in spite of her skepticism. During her last two Samhain festivals, she had seen things, unexplainable things even with magic… It was worth a try. Just for curiosity’s sake.

Throughout the celebration, the participants paid respect to their ancestors, family members, friends, pets, and other loved ones who have died. It was a festival of darkness, which was balanced by the light and fertility of the spring festival Beltain on the 1^st of May. 

So yeah. She didn’t see anything wrong with it. Dumbledore was a paranoid ass who had never recovered from his lover’s betrayal. Oh! And that little tidbit? Totally confirmed by the man himself if not in as many words. The things you get to hear when you’re a baby, and your parents don’t trust anyone to babysit you while they go to a super-secret Order of the Phoenix meeting with other vigilantes, so they have to take you with them! The gossip! The blackmail! Both her godparents and the Marauders would have been proud.

She picks listlessly at her over sugary food. Halloween Feasts at Hogwarts never had proper fare. She pities the diabetic students.

If she remembered her timeline right, Harry and Ron must have already met Fluffy after being tricked by the younger Malfoy into a duel, and thus knew about the trapdoor the Cerberus was guarding. She couldn’t recall exactly when it had happened, but she was certain it did. Honestly, what was Dumbledore thinking? Why did he not just chuck that damned stone into his desk drawer, cast a Fidelus, made himself the secret keeper and called it a day? Personally, she would have left it with Flamel. The guy had been protecting it fucking fine for literal centuries, she didn’t see the need to relieve him of that duty now. He probably hadn’t been keeping it in Gringotts either, being French. That little show with Hagrid and the mysterious package was likely Dumbledore’s opening move in the chess game he was playing with Tom bloody Marvolo Riddle as his opponent. He was trying to get Harry interested in discovering what it was and then gradually having him get invested in protecting the Stone, maybe?

And to think all her current stressing could have been so easily avoided.

She just knew that old man’s convoluted plans will ruin her night. She won’t get to dance until her feet bleed and she won’t get a high from the inexplicably vast amount of magic that drew itself to the unique places where rituals were conducted on occasions such as a Sabbath day. Mysterious things, ley lines.

Irritated, she threw a stunner at a persistent bat that had been trying to steal pieces of her dinner all evening. Gravity reassessed itself and the flying rodent flopped into Katie Bell’s pumpkin soup. The Quidditch Chaser’s shrill shriek was music to her ears.

“Nice aim.” James compliments her.

“Thanks.” She tells him, proudly tossing her hair back with a graceful shake of her head. “I’ve been practicing.”

He grins, and with a swish of his wand stuns a bat of his own. That one falls on the head of Oliver Wood. Would you look at that! The pesky little rats that served as Halloween decorations and flew freely among the candles hidden in carved, floating pumpkins were turning out to be useful for something other than aggravating her further. Annoying Gryffindors never failed to bring up her mood.

Burke barks out a loud laugh, preparing to take aim too when the doors slam open and Quirrell comes sprinting into the hall, turban askew, looking absolutely terrified. Lighting flashes on the Enchanted Ceiling accompanied by a theatrical rumble of thunder and everyone stared in various states of disbelief as he reached Dumbledore.

“Troll – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know.” He pants out before sliding to the floor in what appeared to be a dead faint. She knew better.

The man was a terrible actor and a terrible teacher. His stutter tended to disappear at random moments when he was teaching class, and he was not subtle at all when checking out the Slytherins.  She thought Voldemort was scoping out future followers, the rest thought Quirinus Quirrell was one creepy man. She’d heard several girls promising each other to come help if the professor ever asked one of them to his office alone. And she could never understand why he needed the garlic. The purple turban alone should have been enough to hide his parasite, the smell coming off that thing could kill someone.

Thankfully, as far as she was aware, he had never tried to read her mind. She’d made certain to not look into his eyes and she’d taken to mentally singing annoying songs in his presence. Occlumency was not part of her skillset yet, though she was looking to change that soon. It was hard to learn when you couldn’t trust anyone to help.

He did pay a worrying amount of attention to her. Quirrellmort must have fixated on her because she was not only a Potter in Slytherin but the Boy-Who-Lived sister. Confession time; his attentiveness to her every move scared her shitless. It had gotten bad enough she had seriously considered ditching class and she would have had it not been wildly out of character for her. Voldemort might have noticed that she knew something and frankly, she wasn’t sure she’d have survived that confrontation. She was counting down days until the end of the school year.  

Following Quirrell’s announcement, there is an uproar. Students move towards the doors in a mad rush, skirting around their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor’s unconscious body. There was yelling and sobbing and a lot of noise in general.

With a heavy sigh, she pushes herself to her feet. She didn’t think she would have lost her head like that had she not know the troll wasn’t actually in the dungeons.

“Sit down, Potter.” Zabini impatiently catches her sleeve. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“The dungeons?” She says snappily and pauses. “Oh.”

“Exactly.” The other girl would have rolled her eyes had it been socially acceptable for a pureblood.

She sinks back down on her seat. “What about the Hufflepuffs?”

“They should still be fine,” Zabini answers. “they aren’t that far down. Not quite dungeons yet.”
“And if they are stupid enough to go wandering then they deserve to die.” James shrugs.

Dumbledore manages to get the situation under control with an echoing shout and several firecrackers exploding from the tip of his wand. In short order, prefects are leading students to their dormitories in neatly organized packs, and the professors hurry off in search of the troll. Of course, Dumbledore also conveniently forgets the location of the Slytherindormitories.

It’s almost funny, watching three-thirds of the school panic while they calmly sit and nibble on their dinners. Once the last of the non-Slytherins have left, their prefects shut the doors, bar them, and return to their seats.

“We’ll wait here for Professor Snape.” Malfoy the Older says and reaches for a syrup-covered apple.

Chatter gently resumes, the troll being the center of their discussions. They wanted to know how it got it in without Dumbledore feeling it pass through the wards. Some suspected it had been let it, and she knew them to be correct.

She nervously spins her wand in her hand like one would spin a pencil. She really wanted to go find her brother. What was she thinking, letting him confront a full-grown mountain troll all alone? What if something went wrong? What if they don’t get to Hermione in time? What if –

“What do you think, Potter?”

She glances up at Pucey. “It was let in.”

“Why do you say that?” The boy frowns.

“Because there shouldn’t be any trolls living in the Forbidden Forest? And because the wards would have alerted Dumbledore that a Dark creature had forced its way through them into the castle grounds on its own?”

“Why would anyone let in a troll into Hogwarts?” Burke asks unsatisfied with her rationalization.

She shrugs. “I don’t know, why would anyone tell the Gryffindors there is something deadly on the third floor, and then expect them not to go investigate? If there is one thing I’ve learned at Hogwarts, it’s that wizards tend to lack common-sense.”

There are grumbles at that, but no one argues. They enjoy their dramatics a little too much, and they know it. Practicality was not for them. A troll for a distraction? Couldn’t Quirrell have just waited until everyone was asleep before going to reconnoitre the defense around the Stone? Everyone needs to sleep sometime. There was no need to ruin Samhain for them.

Eventually, Professor Snape returns and directs them back to their dormitories. He tells them the troll had been deal with and nothing more, but she does notice his rather prominent limp and the drops of blood that fell occasionally on the floor behind him as he walked. He looked massively unhappy, a particular sort of look upon his face that she had already associated with her brother doing something stupid. Not for one second did she believe Snape had believed Hermione’s version of the story. He was too smart to fall for such a lie, and he was a mind-reader to boot. Also, the giant House point hourglasses were now showing five additional points to Gryffindor. Obviously, the boy hadn’t learned his lesson from their debate about Quidditch and had rushed headless into danger yet again. Somewhere deep down, she’d been hoping he’d acted smarter and had maybe alerted a prefect of Hermione’s absence instead of running off himself half-cocked with only Ronald Weasley as backup, but she presumes that was the difference between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor. To her, bravery was often a synonym for recklessness and nobility to stupidity. Why face an opponent head-on when it was easier and much safer to her own person to merely poison them?

They enter their Snake Pit and gather around their House Head silently.

He looks at them severely. “Samhain is not canceled.” There are cries of relief. “If you wish to participate, feel free to change and continue as normal. Groups of minimums of five. Students below fifth year are to be accompanied by a prefect at all times.”

The professor stalks away, and they hurry off to their dorms.

They don’t spend time chatting. Where the previous years they would gossip and help each other, taking hours to carefully prepare themselves, this time they hurry in tense silence.

She slips on unassuming, yet flattering, dark robes with a hood, and pulls out the mask Zabini had procured and forced upon her during their first year. It resembled a full-face Venetian masquerade mask, delicate and graceful. Curling eyelashes were drawn around the eye-shaped eyeholes, and its full lips were painted a deep red. Subtle designs were etched into its white surface mimicking cracked varnish. Gold paint covered the bridge of the nose, up to the forehead,and down across the cheekbones in lace patterns. A patch of the same gold shined on the chin, and pale diamonds studded the exterior here and there. She had thought it too mature for an eleven-year-old, but it was so beautiful she couldn’t refuse. She’ll grow into it, she had justified to herself.

Her vanity and love of gorgeous things, two of her fatal flaws, would be the death of her.

Attaching her mask to her face with a Sticking Charm, she makes her way back out to the common room. There was no time to do her hair, they had already missed the rituals due to the troll as it was, so she leaves it hanging free over her shoulders in its natural soft curl.  

“Ready?” Malfoy the Older asks behind his own mask, and at the accent of their group of eleven, they creep out.

The prefect had at first glance a much simpler disguise than hers; a half mask in soft green. Only, if one looked closely enough, snake scales shimmered over the entire surface which contrasted nicely with his embroidered dark emerald robes and engraved silver buttons.

James, sneaking beside her on exceptionally light feet, had a feathered mask that left only the bottom third of his face uncovered, and that had long, sharp protrusions sweeping back from his forehead.  The edge above his nose ended in a pointed beak-like shape. Even his robes had a feathered collar to match the theme, and his color scheme was browns and creams. It brought to mind an owl, albeit one with horns.

Zabini, she notices, had something new. When the previous years she had worn something similar to hers, this time her robes were burgundy-colored, and her new half-mask resembled glittering and dripping in gems butterfly wings. They were very large, bending back past the sides of her head, and jutting on the top. She approved; given the chance, she wouldn’t have refused to wear it too.

For little Malfoy the Younger, she had been expecting something frankly outrageous and had been pleasantly surprised. They all were. Instead of the highly anticipated ostentatious diamonds, the single gem decorating his full-face mask had been an unassuming white opal emblemed into the middle of the forehead. There were small horn-shaped extensions pointed up by his temples, and tiny fangs poked out from the painted lips. Color-wise, it was all sophisticated white and icy blue and dabs of soft wisteria purple. It retained a human shape, but it was clearly a dragon face for a Draco. Fitting, she supposed, and probably his mother’s choice.

The whole point behind the masks was that no one was supposed to know who the person was. They were hiding themselves from harmful spirits seeking vengeance because with the Veil so thinned on Samhain, it made sense that good souls weren’t the only ones to cross over. Unfortunately, some people were too proud to hide. Looking at you, Avery.

Her mask was a tiny thing of sheer black lace. Pretty, but altogether useless, much like her. And her robes were downright scandalous for a sacred celebration.

They travel across the grounds to the Forbidden Forest under a powerful Disillusionment Charm cast by Malfoy the Older, dodging Mrs. Norris along the way in the Entrance Hall, and cross Hogwarts’ ward-line. Dumbledore no doubt knew what they were doing, but there was little he could do. Punishments would only lead to parents complaining. They generally knew what their children were doing on Halloween, and were habitually encouraging them.

In a clearing, they join another much smaller group from Hufflepuff – Ravenclaw had the second-highest number of traditionalists after Slytherin, and Gryffindor had practically none – and a slender figure in purple robes slides between her and James.

Ava’s half mask was silver with amethysts cut into droplets hanging on elegant chains from the edge of it just below her cheekbones. From experience, she knew her pale blond hair was gathered into a low bun, held together by a longer chain with more gem droplets. Very tasteful, and showed money without overdoing it.

“Did you have any trouble?” Ava asks while the older students searched for their portkeys.

“No.” James shakes his head. “We stayed in the Great Hall. You?”

Her lavender lips stretch into a smile. “We didn’t even smell it.”

The Hufflepuff prefect calls for them, and they go to her, silent once more.

They didn’t attend the same celebrations. Because it was impractical to have so many students in one place, they each divided into small groups and got their own portkeys that lead to different locations in Britain. It was random. You never knew where you will land.

This year, the portkeys turn out to be large sticks with iron rings around one end. The year before, it had been colorful meter-long strings. There was none of the muggle trash nonsense, and she was happier for it.  There were so many more methods wizards could use to hide portkeys, and old boots were unsanitary.  

They grab hold of the sticks, and several people call out the activation phrase. With a ‘Portus’, they were spinning. It was a particularly unpleasant sensation, and Harry had been spot on describing it. It really was as though a hook had grabbed them behind their navels and had then suddenly jerked them forward. Their feet left the ground, and they were speeding through space in a howl of wind and a nauseating swirl of color, their hands glued with Gorilla Glue to the stick. She’d heard horror stories of people who let go midway. There usually was a lot of blood involved if they didn’t just disappear to parts unknown for forever.

They land, and she doesn’t make a fool of herself by staggering over or throwing up as she had the first time around. Practice did make perfect.

Immediately at their arrival, they are assaulted by bright light from merrily burning bonfires and music that came from everywhere at once and that reminded her of the Narnian Lullaby from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie. There were people of all ages, from toddlers clumsily dancing in a circle to elders tapping their feet and clapping their hands on the boundaries of the magically enlarged clearing, all wearing masks. There were blank masks, animal masks, Venetian masks, pretty masks, ugly masks, magical masks, disco ball masks… Some were rich, others were poor, some purebloods, others half-bloods, but they mingled together in a way they would have never on any other day. Sabbats were dates where none cared of your station in life.

A passing older boy in a feathery crow mask runs by, and snags her by the hands, pulling her along. With a laugh, she allows him to manhandle her, and soon they were jumping together over flames and twirling barefoot on the cold, wet grass. She didn’t know his name. She had never seen his exposed face. They had barely said a word to each other. They were friends. The best of friends who had no need for speech to understand the other. On Sabbats, magic connected them better than their limited language ever could.

They had met on her first Samhain when she had been awkward and shy and he had helped her learn to truly appreciate the Night of the Dead. He had been the one to teach her to let the wild magic fill her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. It was intoxicating. It was addicting. It was wonderful. It was raw power singing in her veins, warm and tingling and glorious. It was each inch of her body on fire. It was orgasmic pleasure a hundred times better than sex.

As she danced, in the flames, from the corner of her eyes, she glimpses images; a book, a ring, a locket, a cup, a diadem, a snake, and a baby boy. A hideous face with flat slits for a nose roars at her. She sees a rainforest and an underwater scene, the ruins of a great city, a circle of Ancient Runes. She sees the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China. She sees armies of times long past marching by.

Around them, wraiths also dance. There was a woman looking similar to a younger Bellatrix Lestrange, and there was a man with the characteristic blond hair and grey eyes of a Malfoy. A woman was wearing the traditional garbs of a Banduri, another, in a Greek chiton.

The spirits – not ghosts, never ghosts – had joined them. They flew over their heads and danced their own dances midair. They weren’t the ordinary spirits of those who had been afraid of death and preferred to remain behind when their time came. No, those were those that had gone beyond and had decided to return for one night on Samhain.

She comes back down from her magical high in her dorm, mechanically putting away her things with only the fuzziest memories of how she had come back. Her robes were blemished with grass stains, her hair was a mess of twigs and leaves, and she smelled of smoke. Her head throbbed from lack of sleep, her feet felt raw, and every step hurt. As if that wasn’t enough, she was ravenously hungry. All in all, the usual symptoms of a post-Samhain celebration.

In the Great Hall, the Slytherin table looked like it had been commandeered by the cast of a zombie movie. Everyone was shuffling, and moaning, and clutching in pain at their heads. James had thumped his forehead against the dark wood and refused to move even to drink some tea. Zabini was sleepily stuffing scrambled eggs into her mouth, uncaring of the half that fell right back down into her plate when she missed. Judging by his snores, Burke had fallen asleep and she wasn’t any better, having leaned her inexplicably heavy head on her hand, she was fighting to keep her eyes open. It wasn’t a weekend. They had class in barely ten minutes.

On the bright side, Avery was quiet for once. Those giant eyebags looked rather fetching on her.

Graham Montague sits down heavily on his seat. “They say Harry Potter fought the troll yesterday and won.”

“Ugh,” Zabini says in disgust.

“I’m gonna kill him.” She mumbles because that was the expected reaction from her.

“Why?!” James groans into the table.

“To save some mudblood or something.” Montague shrugs and yawns hugely, causing Miles Bletchley to yawn, which sets of a chain reaction down the table.

Hiding her own yawn behind a hand, she wishes for some Death Wish coffee beans. Or a shot of espresso, at the very least. She’d give anything for a Venti-sized cup of Starbucks Blond Roast coffee. As much as she loved tea, it just wasn’t sufficiently strong after an all-nighter of hard-core partying.

At the Gryffindor table, she spies Harry happily interacting with Ron and Hermione and something pleased flickered in her chest before it was viciously squashed by a wave of tiredness. She slumps further, the hand holding up her head sliding from her cheek to her temple. They couldn’t even go to the hospital wing for a Wideye Potion, there wouldn’t be nearly enough for all of them, and in any case, Dumbledore had forbidden Madame Pomphrey from handing it out after a Sabbat day. He had hoped it would discourage students from sneaking out to join the celebrations, but it hadn’t done much, bar making the traditionalists hate him even more.

In fact, she could hear Bole and Derrick and Flint whispering ideas for the man’s murder between themselves only a couple of seats away. They had decided the Killing Curse was too easy, too painless, and she had to agree. Though, she did like their ‘keep him awake until he died of exhaustion’ plan. Unfeasible, but a nice thought. Have him feel like they felt now; drained of the night’s euphoria, fatigue sinking deep into their bones where wild magic had bloomed hours earlier. Why couldn’t he understand that it wasn’t normal lethargy? That it was of magical nature? Or maybe he did understand, but simply didn’t care?

She yawns again into her black, black as her soul tea. There were going to be a lot of detentions that day for inattention in class. Only Professor Snape, and perhaps half-goblin Professor Flitwick, will turn a blind eye to their sufferings. And Quirellmort, but she preferred not to think about him.

“C’mon.” Malfoy the Older murmurs from behind her, uncharacteristically crassly but understandingly, his hands lightly pressing into her shoulders. She twists her head back to peer at his wan face in concern. “Class is about to start.”

Her nose wrinkles. She was so glad she had History of Magic first.

Naptime.

Chapter Text

Saturday, November 9th, 1991

This year’s first Quidditch match was today. Harry does not participate, and no one gets almost brutally murdered by having their brooms sabotaged midflight by a powerful Dark curse cast by a Dark Lord possessed Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Oliver Wood is once again brained by a Bludger two minutes into the game and has to spend time in the infirmary. Also, according to James, their new Seeker is horrendous at his job. He was similarly taken out early in the game by a well-timed maneuver by Flint, and with both opposing Keeper and Seeker gone, the Slytherin team was practically guaranteed total victory. As a result, Slytherin absolutely dominated the rest of the match, and Gryffindor loses the game. I think the final result was 430 to 60, or something ridiculous like that since Higgs put off catching the Snitch to give our Chasers time to rack up points.

All is well.

She pauses her scribbling in her diary as she recalls something, and flips back multiple pages looking for a specific passage from several years ago.

Harry and co. find out about Nicholas Flamel’s involvement with the Stone (they don’t know what it is yet) hidden beneath the trapdoor guarded by Fluffy on the third-floor after the first Quidditch game when visiting Hagrid.

Huh, that could be a problem; she didn’t know if the Golden Trio had in fact visited Hagrid after the Quidditch match. They had attended the game, she knew that much, but she didn’t know where they went after. They could have just as well returned to the castle as soon as it had been over.

She thoughtfully taps the upper part of her fountain pen against her bottom lip. Did it matter whether they knew or didn’t know it was the Philosopher Stone specifically being guarded? They’d figured out it was something important and shouldn’t that be enough for them to want to protect it from the ‘evil’ Professor Snape? Hagrid was so bad at keeping secrets, he could accidentally blab about it on any other day anyway.

She’ll just have to look out for Hermione’s reading list in the Library. If she was checking out mainly history books and autobiographies, then they knew about Flamel. In any case, Harry was too damn curious for his own good to give up on a mystery that easily. No sense of self-preservation in that trio. Why anyone believed Hermione would have done better in Ravenclaw than in Gryffindor is beyond her. The Slytherins who didn’t want to go to Slytherin for whatever reason – like the wrong sort of blood or who just didn’t want to deal with all the politicking – coughKylecough – went there most often, after all, and Hermione was not a snake in any shape or form. Plus, she was a little too narrowminded to really fit in with the ravens. By nature, Ravenclaws are creative and open-minded. Hermione refuses to believe anything that isn’t written out as a fact in a book.

Although, there is also that theory about Hermione that stated that she wanted Gryffindor because she sought recognition and credit for her work, while most Ravenclaws simply didn’t care... Kyle is a good example. He is an individualist who wanted knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Hemione is a show-off who wants knowledge to be noticed, and in Gryffindor she would have stood out because she would have had less competitors in intelligence levels. She’d have been the ‘best’ student in the ‘best’ House in the eyes of the teachers. A very Slytherin scheme if it was true.

Which reminds her, why the absolute hell did the Hat want Harry in Slytherin? He’d be eaten alive in her House. Too noble, too naïve, too kind… A thirst to prove himself was nowhere nearly enough to cut it in this nest of backstabbing vipers. Honestly, the boy was a born Gryffindor with a side of Hufflepuff, and that was as clear as day. A blind man could see it, even! Ron would do better in Ravenclaw than Harry in Slytherin!

Wrinkling her nose in disgust at the mental image of Ron in blue, she returns to her writing.

Note: Hagrid might not have slipped up about Flamel to Harry and co. Should not affect plot much, but keep an eye out, just in case.

Additional thoughts: does Harry have to have to find the Mirror? If he doesn’t go looking for information about Flamel in the Restricted Section in the middle of the night, he wouldn’t accidentally stumble upon it.

Why was it in the empty room in the first place? Why did Dumbledore leave it somewhere where anyone (Ex: couples looking for a quiet place) could find it? Did Dumbledore want Harry to find it? Why? The Mirror would work regardless of whether Harry knows what it is, right? Was he checking on what Harry wanted the most to make sure he wasn’t turning out to be another Tom Riddle? Also, where is the Philosopher Stone now then? How is it being protected? Why not leave it where it is if no one know it’s there, but him? Why leave it somewhere it will eventually get discovered? Nearly everyone knows the Weasley twins have already braved the third floor and its promised painful death. Everyone who cares to listen already know about the Cerberus and the Devil Snare and everything else. It became a fucking game for the older Gryffindors! Who can get through the fastest? Who can find the most effective way to pass the obstacles? Who can discover the secret of the enigmatic seemingly-purposeless bare room at the end?

I’m glad the other Slytherins don’t know about this yet. It would be a disaster. Draco Malfoy wouldn’t be the only one complaining to his parents.

Manipulative old coot. When you know what I know, either he’s the world’s biggest idiot, or it’s all part of his plan to raise Harry into a sacrificial pawn.

Finishing up her new entry, she closes her notebook with a decisive snap and carelessly throws it and the pen unto the already cluttered with stacks of precariously placed hardcovered books and piles of rolled up parchment surface of a small desk that stood beside her bed, and stretched out on her green covers with a discontented little sigh.

Diary was a bit of a misleading name for the plain, and clearly often used book. It was more of a journal; an absolute mess jam-packed with timelines, various notes and detailed hand-drawn sketches. Here and there the surface of the pages was dotted with sticky notes, often in the style of a collage, and she color-coded everything with colorful highlighters. More than one bookmark peeked out from the top, and not a single line had been written in plain English. It was all Sindarin.

Yes, she’d learned an entire fictional language and decided to code in it. She’d been bored as a child and it wasn’t the first time – in her previous life she had also learned Mando’a (but that one was a little limited for her purposes), bits of Na’vi (not enough to be fluent so until James Cameron’s Avatar came out again it was useless knowledge) and Trigedasleng (too based in English to be impossibly hard to translate if you were good at codebreaking), and that was not counting all the other official languages she knew. Everyone needed a favorite hobby, she just happened to be a polyglot. Plus, if anyone tried to read her notebook in an attempt to discover her deepest darkest secrets, well… Good luck deciphering it, Avery! She doubted even Hermione could translate her writing. Fantasy didn’t seem like her thing, so unless there was a Ravenclaw Tolkien super fan she wasn’t aware off, she was safe. Plus, she also had to invent a lot of words for things that didn’t have a similar equivalent in Middle Earth. Like Quidditch. And Transfiguration, Horcruxes, the many, many Magical creatures… She could fill an entire dictionary with her inventions.

Many of the currently filled pages were crammed up with an in-depth synopsis of the original Harry Potter story while the newest she was steadily covering with retellings of the new version of the same events as they happened. It made it easier to compare the two and make certain the plot hadn’t accidentally deviated to far from its proper course when she had both accounts written down and on hand.

The door to the dorm opens, and a pretty blond gleefully flounces in. “Potter! Is it true you’ve been snogging with Burke?”

She jerks upright, mouth dropping in shock and brain stalling. Burke? Craig Burke? Big-nosed, yellow-teethed, muggle-hating, likely future Death Eater Burke? That Burke?

DahliaPotter.exe crashing… Error… Error… Blue screen of death…

Loading… Loading… Loading…

“What?” She croaks.

“I know you’ve been raised by muggles,” Avery says condescendingly. “but witches take their chastity very seriously. Finding yourself a good husband when you are known ah… used goods, it’s going to be hard, darling. Do try to be discreet with your dalliances in the future.”

She blinks, and her brain reboots. “I haven’t been snogging with Burke.” She pauses. “And I’m not planning on marrying.” Avery looks flummoxed as if she couldn’t believe someone wouldn’t want to marry and pop out two kids – an heir and a spare – in short order. Preferably the first nine months after the marriage, the second nine more months after. Also, a girl or two that they could barter away like cattle would be preferable after the happy couple had their boys to secure alliances with other families. Geez, get with the times, wizards.  “Where did you even hear this?”

“It’s all over the school.” Zabini informs her, walking in followed closely behind by the three other girls they shared the dorm room with. “It started spreading almost as soon as the match ended. They say you’ve been seen with Burke under the stands.”

“I didn’t go to the game!” She protests. “I never go to the game. James tells me everything after.”

This was obviously a maliciously spread rumor with the goal of ruining her social standing with a scandal. Only, they haven’t taken in account her dislike for Quidditch – she thought it boring like with most sports. She preferred the more artistic exemplars of physical activities. Synchronized swimming. Figure skating. Competitive Dancing. Gymnastics.

“Yes.” Zabini says. “Burke had been busy denying the rumors in the common room for all to hear for the last half-hour. We’ve gotten real sick of him and his voice.”

She perplexedly shakes her head. “Who would spread such lies about me? I don’t recall provoking anyone to deserve such a reaction lately. Well, except maybe…” Here she trails off, frowning heavier in realization.

“The entirety of Gryffindor?” Avery states drily. “Not their usual modus operandi, I’ll admit, but perhaps their latest Quidditch loss had been the last straw.”

She huffs angrily. “You’re Quidditch mad.” She accuses hotly. “All of you! It’s only a game! There is no need to drag my reputation through the mud for attempting to protect my only close blood relative in the Wizarding World from easily avoidable harm. Surely they can wait one more year before letting Harry on their team.”

“They’re Gryffindors.” Yaxley says like it explained everything. Which it probably did.

She silently seethes. If she ever finds out who started the rumors… There was a damn good reason why she was on decent terms with most of her Housemates, and it wasn’t her charming personality.

For fuck’s sake, she was thirteen! Didn’t matter what her mental age was, her body was still the one of a child with all the accompanying hormones. She’s barely hit puberty! Kissing, much less sex had yet to even cross her mind beyond the odd ‘it was something she used to do and enjoyed’ thought.

She exits the dormitory in an angry huff, and starts sulking even harder when the moment she enters the common room, the noise level lowers in a way that suggested they had been talking about her.

“Potter!” Burke exclaims, leaping up from the couch he was sitting on, surrounded by a large crowd. He almost trips over the small brazier that stood in the middle of his seating area in his haste.

She stalks over to him, crossing her arms and cocking her hip. Her gaze runs up and down and up again the length of his body. “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t kiss you even if you were the last man on earth, Burke.” She proclaims loudly.

The boy colors, and there are sniggers around the room.

“The Gryffindors went too far this time.” James claims furiously from where he was pacing in another small seating area deftly avoiding his own brazier. The other boys of their year were sitting there too, looking just as pissed.

To a Slytherin, their reputation was everything, especially among their social circle of the many aristocratic pureblood families of Britain. They avoided anything that may ruin that carefully crafted reputation with almost obsessive fervor.

For a witch, keeping their virginity for their husbands was as important as to a muggle woman before feminism was a thing and the Catholic Church had ruled over them with an iron fist. Though the rules a witch had to follow had been greatly relaxed in the late twentieth century, such as chaperonage which persisted only with the extremely traditional families, being found in a compromising position with anyone but her husband was still enough to ruin the poor girl. Rumors, even the ones without proof like the ones being currently spread about her, could follow the witch for the rest of her life. She would shunned and bullied and considered a whore by everyone from her closest family members to mere acquaintances to complete strangers.

Worse, with magic checking for virginity is much easier and physically, if not emotionally, less invasive than anything muggles had invented to do the same thing. A wizard – or a witch – could cast the spell without the consent of the one they were testing. There was little more shameful or ruinous than being revealed as sexually active before marriage in the middle of a crowded ballroom in front of everyone you considered as important by a spiteful rival. Many a family feud had started that way in the past. There was a book about it. It had been an… interesting read. Did the impossible and made her glad she had been reborn in the 1970’s as Harry Potter’s sister with all the troubles it caused her and not back then when it was common.

In short, to maliciously suggest an unmarried witch was no longer virgin knowing it was false was an incredibly cruel thing to do. Anyone who it knew it was untrue and cared about the victim would be outraged on their behalf.

She hadn’t set out with the goal to learn as much as possible about the Wizarding World’s antiquated opinion on a woman’s virginity. It had been James’ mother who had sat her down and had ‘the talk’ with her that summer when the woman had realized she didn’t have a proper older female role model of the witch kind. Allegra Whitlock had been relieved to know she wouldn’t have to go through ‘the birds and the bees’ in full with her, although it hadn’t been the same with her period. She’d been horrified to learn exactly how muggle women dealt with that particular problem and went about muttering about cups and soft sticks for an entire week after to the confusion of both her husband and son. On her part, she was just glad she would no longer have to deal with pads, and tampons, and menstruation cups. As disgusting as potions were, it was so much easier. And prevented unwelcome surprises.

“Does anyone know who started the rumors?” She asks the room.

“Someone particularly stupid.” Malfoy the Older answer lazily. He was royally lounging on a divan by the fireplace with his friends seated around him on the carpeted floor and his girlfriend in his arms. “Potter did announce her lack of love for Quidditch for everyone to hear a few weeks ago.”

“I’d have suspected the Weasley twins,” Saunders musses. “but…”

“They don’t do rumors.” Rowle agrees.

Gemma Farley, the female fifth-year prefect, enter the Snake Pit, the wall behind her shifting close. “None of my contacts in the other Houses know who the rumors about Potter originated from, though the general consensus it was started by Gryffindors.” She announces at once.

“Why do we even care what the Gryffindors are saying about Potter?” Pansy Parkinson sniffs haughtily. “It’s her problem, not ours.”

Yeah, she was kind of wondering that herself. When Avery had told her about it she’d had though the rest of the Slytherins would simply ignore it and that a few might even believe it. She hadn’t expected at all that they’d get outraged on her behave. Truthfully, she was a little overwhelmed by the support her House was showing her.

“Because,” Malfoy the Older drawls. “no one else will stick up for Slytherin. It’s us against the rest of the world. If we don’t take care of our own, who will?”

Well, when put like that… It really was sad that a quarter of the students at Hogwarts were automatically assumed to be evil at the young age of eleven for the crime of being Sorted into the wrong House. And that idiotic prejudice followed them into adulthood. She rather suspected so many of her Housemates were bullies because they had no other choice. Either they hit first and established themselves as strong from the very beginning or they spend the rest of their life being bullied themselves. Other than Snape, the teachers at Hogwarts were more likely to believe anyone else over Slytherins as it was proven only last year when Sprout had punished a third-year who had been in actuality defending himself against four older Ravenclaws just because he had cast the first spell. All the House points their Head of House took from the other Houses in his classroom for the smallest slip-up and the ones he awarded to them for the most mundane of reasons were a last-ditch effort to keep Slytherin in the game for the House Cup. Without him, they would always be last, and for their inner perfectionists it was unacceptable.

“She’s Harry Potter’s sister!” Malfoy the Younger objected loudly.

James scoffs angrily, and the platinum blond boy steps back in surprise. He had not expected such intense reaction to his words, even from her friend.

“And?” Flint raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t stop her from hexing us silly as a tiny firstie when we got too nasty with her.”

She’d had spent a lot of time in the Library that year researching spells and then practicing them in forgotten corners all over the school. Once she had felt ready, she’d single-handedly waged war against the rest of her House. Slytherins respected power so she’d been determined to not be thought of as weak. She hadn’t been able to do much being a firstie on her lonesome, but they’d stopped with their meanspirited pranks, suitably impressed with her guts if not her smarts. She’d proved she wasn’t a pushover.

The current firsties fall quiet under the glares of the rest of their House, and the older students return their attention to the problem at hand.

“How do we retaliate then?” Burke asks. He had gotten over his embarrassment and looked pretty irritated. She feels a little ashamed by her reaction when she remembers she wasn’t the only one targeted by lies though he was mostly likely chosen for his lack of good looks than anything else as her fictitious partner. His reputation wasn’t in danger of being ruined. Unfortunately for any witch, the same double-standards as in the Muggle World applied; a woman could not have premarital sex and after, she was allowed to only with her husband, but a man was encouraged to sleep around even before his balls dropped.

“If we knew whose idea this was,” She answers her year-mate in a gentler tone to show she wasn’t truly angry at him. “I’d have suggested a counter-rumor strategy against them, give them a taste of their own medicine, so to say.”

“But that’s not possible since we don’t know who it was.” Moon completes for her, looking up from the chess game she had been quietly playing with Blishwick in a corner.

“We start rumors about a random Gryffindor. One of their favorites.” Pucey suggested.

Her mouth stretches into something spiteful. “Since they like them so much, why not a Quidditch player? Wood? Johnson? Bell? Spinnet? Personally, I volunteer the twins.”

Malfoy the Older laughs. “And I suppose you already know what you would say?”

Her smirk turns wicked. “I’m afraid it’s not for polite company.”

Farley nods resolutely. “We’ll leave it too you then, Potter.”

“Don’t be shy asking for help!” Flint calls over the slowly rising in volume chatter of the rest of the Slytherins as they start breaking off into smaller groups now that their unofficial House meeting was over.

She rolls her eyes in response to the Quidditch Captain’s request. Help was never free when it came to Slytherins. And regrettably, she had little she could repay her Housemates with other than granting them favors for later.

Owning favors to a snake was a dangerous thing.

But sometimes, it was inevitable.

“Avery!” She hurries after her roommate. “How would you like to get back at the Weasley twins for ruining that potion of yours a couple of classes ago?”  

Blue eyes glint in the shadows, reflecting the green flames of the lanterns surrounding them. “What do you have in mind?”

Apparently, House solidarity really did trump all, even several years of bitter rivalry. Asking Avery to do this one thing for her left a bad taste in her mouth, but at least the girl was a known entity. With her personality, Avery would likely ask her to do something particularly humiliating in public, but ultimately harmless in return for her help. Flint, surprisingly patient, would wait for a few years, then ask for something sexual in nature. Not necessarily full out sex, he wouldn’t go that far, but a blowjob? In a heartbeat.  

The next several days whispers and snide giggles hidden behind hands followed her wherever she went. Despite desperately wanting to duck her head and slump her shoulders, she walked with her head held high and her back straighter than a ramrod. Ah, pride, one of the seven deadly sins and one of her greatest shortcomings.

Beside her, James strode determinedly forward with a scowl on his face, and a hand tightly gripping his satchel’s strap. He had been in a foul mood all weekend, and that was with both of them shut in the Common Room. Now that they were in public, he was ready to blow.

Both Ava and Kyle had already cornered her, and reassured her that they didn’t believe any of the rumors being spread about her. They had, as such things tend to do, grew and evolved until she was not only making out with Burke under the Quidditch stands, but also fucking most of the Slytherins boys in her year, Kyle, and several more of the male students she occasionally talked to and looked to be friendly with. Disgusting.

She enters the classroom, and immediately begins a mental rendition of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance as she slinks by Quirrelmort. Settling down in her usual spot for this year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class – near the door for a quick escape if the professor ever decides to try and kill her during his lesson – she ignores the whispering of the Gryffindors. Avery, passing by to sit down two desks over, gives a short nod with a conspiratorial smirk.

As it happened, that day they were coincidentally going over succubi and incubi, beings of humanoid looks and human intelligence. With beauty comparable to that of a Veela, they also possessed scaly wings, demon tails and horns. Their main food source was the energy they collected from their partners when having sex.

Of course, at that piece of news, the Gryffindors can’t quite contain their amusement. Even staring straight ahead at the blackboard, she can feel their unfriendly gazes on her. Her hand clenches around her fountain pen and James’ leg starts bouncing up and down angrily. 

“I don’t know what you find so funny.” Avery suddenly comments in an uncaring tone. She continues preening in front of her fancy little compact mirror even as everyone – including Quirrelmort who she had unapologetically interrupted during his explanation of the rare half-human offsprings called cambions – turns to look at her with astonished eyes. “By the way, I hear your Weasley twins are sleeping together. Is it true?”

This time, it’s the Slytherins who laugh. And it’s a loud, vindictive laugh too. Because it was true, there had been whispers being spread all over school about the twins’ sordid affair. They know they were probably not genuine, that this was likely be Dahlia’s act of revenge, but they genuinely can’t help it when most of the lions jump up to their feet with outraged shouts. Her own shoulders start shaking when a few peek uncertainly at the two redheads.

She wonders if she’d gone too far by asking Avery to use her gossip network in such a way for a second. But… it was a well-known fact that magical twins could be… weird, for a lack of a better word. Best part was; sleeping together would not be that unbelievable for a pair of them. Not after the discovery of what exactly the Abbot twins were doing in the 1890’s or the MacDougals in the 1740’s. The Lannisters had nothing on them.

The twins fellow Gryffindors will defend them, but they will also have a small seed of doubt about the sincerity of their claims of innocence. And they deserved it, annoying pricks they were.

The situation escalates. Some of the Gryffindors pull out wands. The Slytherins get to their feet too and follow suit, unwilling to remain unarmed when facing their greatest enemies. It would have been a scene right out of a Spaghetti Western film if the cowboys with guns had been replaced by magic students with thin sticks, and instead of a long, dusty road, the only thing separating the two warring factions was a thin aisle between their halves of the classroom.

“Pppplease, ppputt aaaway yyour waands.” Quirellmort begs them. It was no use. After weeks of covert back and forth skirmishes in the halls, their tempers have finally boiled over.

A spell flies over her head and she ducks for cover beneath her desk with a yelp, almost hitting James’ nose with her skull when he has the same idea. She leans out to shoot off an Avis Oppugno, followed by a couple of Disarming Charms while the Gryffindors where distracted by the flock of birds suddenly attacking them, before ducking back to avoid the violet light of a Densaugeo.

Multiple people collapse to the floor from Tickling Charms, and Yaxley is forced to waltz in the aisle by a Tarantallegra. Jordan was sporting a face full of gross pustules and Spinnet had been petrified mid curse by a Petrificus Totalus. 

It was pure chaos. There was yelling and crying and someone had begun the construction of a pair of forts from the abandoned desks. Using the Levitation Charm to carry their own desk so that it could continue acting as their shield, she and James make their way to the one being erected on the Slytherin side of the room.

Zabini, Pucey, Warrington, and Montague welcome them with open arms and Bletchley, sporting a fetching set of antlers, attempts a suicide run to join them. He’s felled by a well-cast Arresto Momentum from one of the Weasley twins which was then followed by a Bat-Bogey Hex from the other, a Hair-Loss Curse from Jordan and a Colloshoo from Towler.

It was a schoolyard fight, the likes of which could only happen in a school of magic. No one was seriously hurt, and most of the spells being flung around were the pranking type. There was no Dark Magic being cast and there was going to be no irreparable damage to those who’d been hit. They’d spend a day in the Hospital Wing, max.

Still, when the classroom door is flung open with an echoing bang by a furious Professor McGonagall, they all freeze as if they had been caught casting Unforgivables.

“Never! In all my years!” She gasps out, chest heaving with fury.

Johnson claps a hand around her mouth to stifle the opera song she kept trying to burst into. Cantis; it caused its victims to sing uncontrollably. Burke was good at it.

“Fighting! In the classroom! In full view of your professor! During lesson time!” The older woman continues. Quirellmort warily leans away from her. He’d been the one to inform her of their current situation and had been hiding behind her back.

“Fifty points off! Each! And detention!”

“They started it!” A twin complains loudly.

“You threw the first spell.” She mutters snidely under her breath.

Professor McGonagall’s glasses flash at the Weasley. “Ten more points off from Gryffindor!”

“Pppperhaps, wwe ssshould hhelp?” Quirellmort suggests, noting all the dancing, laughing, jabbering, whatever, students. “Finite Incantatem.”

It doesn’t undo everything; Bletchley remains bald, and Jordan continues sporting his pustules, but she bites her tongue having been unprepared to stop talking so suddenly, and has to spit out a glob of blood. The Babbling Curse she’d been hit with towards the end of the fight was one of the worse spells that could have possibly affected her. She’d been concentrating on keeping her voice a whisper and her steady stream of babble irrelevant shit for the last five minutes.

She’s also been unable to properly cast, since non-verbal spells were beyond her reach for now, and had discovered she was pretty skilled at helping her allies by distracting their opponents by throwing inkwells and textbooks at them.

“To the Hospital Wing, all of you.” Professor McGonagall orders. “Merlin knows what you did to yourselves.”

They obediently collect their belongings from where they have been thrown about the classroom and fill out.

Chapter Text

In the end, their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was destroyed, they were all in detention for the foreseeable future, they had lost an enormous amount of House Points, and she still couldn’t bring herself to regret a thing. It had been one of the best days in her life. Both lives. The adrenaline rush she had gotten? Wow. She’d forgotten how much she loved fighting just for the sake of fighting. She’d been so concerned with maintaining her image, first to keep a peaceful relationship with the Dursleys, then to keep up her good reputation in Slytherin that she hadn’t properly unwind in a long, long time. It was like she had scratched an irritating itch she hadn’t even noticed she had.

The rest of the Slytherins didn’t seem to regret it either. Sure, they’ve lost their considerable lead in points gained from the Quidditch game against Gryffindor and with it their guarantee of victory, but they’d gotten the lions good. The growing wilder with each retelling rumor about the twins was circulating well, they were the lowest in term off House Points and they had had their butts kicked. What more could they want? 

The rest of November is relatively calm, and on the 9^th of December she signs up to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas Holidays. A couple of days later, she almost dies laughing when she spots the Weasley twins bewitching snowballs to follow Quirrell and bounce off the back of his turban. Her friends are left baffled by her reaction, but she now had a precious memory she thought would work well for when she would have to cast a Patronus. After all, those two idiots were unknowingly hitting the face of Voldemort himself!

December 21^th was their second trip to Hogsmeade, just as uneventful as the first on the 26^th of October. She stocks up on stationery at Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, gets sweets from Honeydukes as Christmas gifts for acquaintances, buys a large jar of Fleetwood’s High-Finish Handle Polish at Spintwitches Sporting Needs for her broom, avoided Zonko’s Joke Shop and Madam’s Puddifoot’s Tea Shop with extreme prejudice, ducked into Gladrags Wizardwear with Ava for a minute, and had to be dragged out of Tomes and Scrolls by the back of her coat along with Kyle by James. With the Three Broomsticks Inn being overcrowded by other students, they enjoy their Butterbeers on a fallen log by the Shrieking Shack.

When they come back to Hogwarts after a long and cold day, the Great Hall had been transformed. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung from the walls and twelve Christmas trees towered around the room all either sparkling with tiny icicles or glittering with hundreds of candles. One of them had golden bubbles trailing over its branches. From the enchanted ceiling fell snowflakes that disappeared a few inches from Hagrid’s head. It was a spectacular sight. A sight that never failed to awaken her long-forgotten Harry Potter fan enthusiasm. To think she could see this for real and not just in her imagination or on the screen!

The next day, they sneak out again to celebrate the winter solstice. This time they don’t party in a clearing in the middle of nowhere. The poor gathered in large gatherings in the houses of their neighbours for the celebration, but she had the dubious luck of being Kyle plus one when he wanted to avoid the rich pureblood girls his parents keep pushing at him. As such, she was invited to the poshest parties thrown by the snobbiest of the wizarding nobility. Wearing a fancy custom-tailored dress ordered weeks in advance, she waltzed the night away slightly drunk on the best of champagne, first with Kyle, then with James who was Ava’s escort, and then with several of her other male classmates who had received one of the highly coveted invitations to the decorated in tasteful and elegant decorations for the occasion Malfoy Manor. Ambrosius was a brilliant dancer, and Narcissa was as gracious a host as the previous year. She hadn’t been insulted once for her lowly birth in her hearing. Against all expectations, she had fun.

The term ends on the 23^rd and she’s left almost all alone in the Snake Pit. Not many Slytherins opt to remain during holidays, often preferring to spend their two weeks of freedom traveling to warmer and drier parts. The Zabinis were going to their Italian villa, Avery was off to some sandy beach, Kyle and Ava were accompanying their parents on a business trip to India, and even the Malfoys were in France the day after their winter solstice gala to visit relatives. James, who had been planning on keeping her company, had a last-minute decision change too and had returned to his family ranch to help out with a sudden sickness spreading through their Abraxan herd.

She spends her days lazing about with a good book in front of the fireplace. She takes walks outside several times a day, bemoaning the Scottish winter. She missed real cold. At one point, on a whim, she transfigured herself toe-picked blades out of fallen branches and entertains herself by marking designs into the ice of the frozen solid Black Lake to the confusion of some purebloods and half-bloods who didn’t know what figure skating was. They don’t believe her when she tells them that some muggles could spin up to four times in the air when jumping. She could do barely one without falling, and it was not a full rotation.

On Christmas morning, she wakes up to a pile of presents at the foot of her bed. Kyle had sent her Vindictus Viridian’s Curses and Counter-Curses with a note saying that if she insisted on getting into fights with brainless Gryffindors this book was indispensable. Amidst its pages, there was a metal bookmark, engraved to resemble a snake with onyxes for eyes.

From Ava, she had received a pair of beautiful silver earrings with large dangling emeralds and several smaller diamonds. Insanely expensive, but pocket change for a Nott. Zabini too had sent her an emerald brooch that paired well with the earrings as a present.

Her female friends were determined to fill up her jewelry box to what they considered acceptable for a lady of her status. Her mother might have been a mere muggle-born, they repeated to her often, but her father was a Potter. And green stones, they also said, suited her the most. Along with the emerald, she had a growing collection of green tourmaline, green sapphire, dark opals, and peridot. No matter how much she complained, they refused to listen. Until they were satisfied, she was stuck accepting them, because rejecting gifts is rude. You have an image and a reputation to maintain, they reminded her, so give up your futile resistance. We’re doing this for you because we understand that you have to rely on a trust fund you share with your brother for money until you are off age.

James’ present was a delicate statue of an Abraxan made of crystal, which walked gracefully around its platform, occasionally stretching its wings. His note said the herd was getting better. It was only a strain of the common flu that happened to be a little more resistant to spells and potions.

Even Avery had sent her a pretty ring with silver roses, diamonds, and an emerald centerpiece, though she meant it more as a nasty reminder of the money she had and that Dahlia didn’t.

It might seem extensive, for children to give each other such luxurious gifts, but again, it was all about reputation. They were showing their families had money to spend, and anything that seemed cheap would be considered as penny-pinching and an insult by their associates. It was all part of the game, and she tried her best to keep up, going as far as to cheating a tad. In wizarding society, most things were handmade with magic. But however handy it was, magic still can’t keep up with muggle mass production. It meant she could get things off the same quality – if not of magical nature – but much cheaper if she did her Christmas shopping in advance during summer vacation in Muggle London. As long as they didn’t know it was muggle-made she could get away with her trick.

Nonetheless, even with her ruse, she couldn’t afford anything for herself whenever she left like it and tried wasting money on superfluous things only on birthdays and important celebrations for her closest friends. Living surrounded by the rich while being poor sucked. It wasn’t as if Harry knew what money management was either, and he wouldn’t take kindly to her controlling how much he could spend. Thank god, he wasn’t one for excessive buying and had a semblance of control. Another kid would have been spending left and right if he’d gotten unlimited access to a bank vault full of gold. She could only hope the main family vault was as filled as she had been led to believe, and if it wasn’t… Well, she’d been secretly setting aside a small sum of gold into her own newly open vault that should tide her over until she found a steady job.

The last of her presents after the obligatory classy sweets from various acquaintances was from the Dursleys. Unwrapping a box of Aunt Petunia’s neighbourhood-known chocolate cookies, she bites into one with relish. She’d worked hard to have a reasonably nice relationship with her relatives. From her part, she had owled them a St. Honore Cake she’d learned how to bake in her past life along with the inoffensive Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum for Dudley the previous night. Hopefully, it would arrive in time for breakfast.

Still, despite her lavish gifts from her friends, she’s disappointed she hadn’t received anything from Harry. Regardless of their recent troubles with each other, she had nevertheless sent him a Quidditch Through the Ages. She’d hoped Christmastime would work its magic and he would forgive her. She should have known he was far too stubborn for that.

When he ignores her during the Christmas dinner, she gives up and does her best to enjoy the evening. The tables were laden with hundreds of fat turkeys, mountains of boiled potatoes, platters of chipolatas, tureens of buttered peas, silver boats of thick, rich gravy, and cranberry sauce. For dessert, they had flaming Christmas puddings with buried Sickles and frothy eggnog. Every few feet were stacks of wizard crackers which were nothing like their muggle counterparts. They exploded into clouds of blue smoke and went off cannon-loud and there were no little plastics toys or flimsy paper hats inside. Instead, they concealed live mice, non-explodable and luminous balloons, grow-your-own-warts kits, and much more. She gives everything she gets, including the wizard chess set, but not the cute witch hat with the jingling bells, to a happy Hufflepuff firstie. She enjoyed the crackers, but she had no use for most of the surprises.

She laughs when a drunk Hagrid kisses Professor McGonagall on the cheek and toasts Professor Snape with the five Slytherins that had stayed at Hogwarts for the holiday. An older Ravenclaw gets into a debate with her about unconventional uses for some charms. Professor Flitwick interrupts them and excitedly joins in.

By the time she returns to the Common Room, she’s forgotten all about Harry and his pig-headedness. A sixth-year had smuggled in Firewhisky during the Hogsmeade trip and he shares it cheerfully with the rest of them. She introduces them to Never Have I Ever, and they introduce her to Drunk Transfiguration in return. Professor Snape comes in at one point, only to turn right back around when he sees them clustered around a coffee tables with increasingly bizarre and luridly-colored objects, giggling madly. They were clearly plastered, but as long as they kept it to the Pit and away from the rest of the school, they weren’t his problem according to his philosophy on dealing with teenagers.

It ultimately devolves to them sitting messily on the ground in a circle, passing a bottle around, and describing what exactly they’d enjoy doing to specific Gryffindors in vivid detail. They weren’t nice about it. The Weasley twins were mentioned often. Percy too. He was a pompous prat. Jordan, who should have never have been allowed to become a commentator for the Quidditch games if he couldn’t help insulting them every time they played, and most of their team… They’d get expelled immediately if they ever acted on their wishes, but it was nice to fantasize. Every day, they had to constantly keep in mind that they couldn’t get away with as much as Dumbledore’s favored golden lions. It gets frustrating after a while, and they appreciated having the excuse of having indulged in too much alcohol to finally vent their grievances.

Grimmett breaks the mold by admitting she would have liked to snog Charlie Weasley. She agrees, he had been a prime male specimen. He reminded her a lot of Richard Madden with redder and straighter hair, less beard, and more freckles. Definitely the best looking in his family. He had also been unusually nice to her for a Gryffindor. Before the Quidditch dispute, they hadn’t respected her because they had believed as a Potter, she should have belonged to their House, not to the one of their ancient foes. For being sorted into Slytherin, she had been branded as a traitor. A slimy traitor which was somehow worse in their tiny minds.

Someone must have eventually remembered she’s physically thirteen and can’t hold her liquor that well when she says something not age-appropriate about Lucius Malfoy’s ass – arse, damn British – because she’s shooed off to bed early. She goes grudgingly. Who the hell knows when she’ll get another chance to properly drink again?

When they finally emerge from their dorms, several hours after breakfast time had passed and altogether wretched-feeling, they exchange glances and collectively mentally agree to never mention the previous evening again.

They do toast Professor Snape for a second time when they find several goblets of smoking Hangover-Cure Potion in the Common Room.

Endless rain replaces the heart-breaking Scottish snow – seriously, give her a two-meter-thick snowdrift any day – and the term resumes. They return to roaming the halls in packs, taking pot-shots at Gryffindors. Their first Defense Against the Darks lesson is delayed after the Toad – a ghostly friend of Peeves – covers the classroom in ectoplasm. She spots Hermione in the Library with arms full of history books, so that was one thing less to worry about. Malfoy the Younger practices his Leg-Locker Curse on Neville Longbottom. She rolls her eyes and helps the poor kid once the snakelet was gone. Normally, she was all for a healthy rivalry between their Houses, but Longbottom was that pathetic. She dearly hopes he will grow into the man she knew he could be, but meanwhile, she suggests he sticks to his older Housemates when not in their Den. The boy eyes her mistrustfully and she wonders what exactly Harry had been telling his friends about her.

February 1^st is Imbolg, a festival marking the beginning of spring. Since it was mainly celebrated in smaller family gatherings, she stays at Hogwarts, only lighting a candle to burn through the night and pouring a bowl of milk into the muddy ground outside as an offering.

Professor Snape does not referee the next Quidditch match, since he had no reason to. Hufflepuff doesn’t quite cream Gryffindor, but they do well. James crows loudly about the lions’ useless Seeker when retelling the game to her. Several of her housemates come by to pat her on the shoulder in gratitude with wide smiles. Flint goes as far as publicly presenting her with a box of expensive chocolate in the Entrance Hall in front of the Gryffindor team. They’ve seen Harry practicing on the pitch with Wood in preparation for the next year. They understood they’d barely dodged a bullet Killing Curse there, thanks to her intervention.

The game had gone on for several hours, and she dimly recalls something about five minutes and black eyes and Longbottom taking on Crabbe and Goyle single-handedly. Hearing nothing about a fight, she shrugs it off and continues about her day. Couldn’t have been anything important, or she’d have had it written down in her journal. Unless she’d missed something vital again, but there was nothing she could do about it in that case. An eidetic memory was not a gift she possessed, unfortunately. It was a miracle already she remembered as much as she did about a storyline she’d last revisited two decades ago.

She hears Ron telling off people for laughing at Quirrell’s stutter and has to stifle her own snicker. Half of Slytherin were betting on whether it was real or faked, with most in favor for the latter. The man wasn’t that decent of an actor, and as accomplished liars themselves, they got good at spotting others.

Ostara happens, right about when the teachers pile on an incredible amount of homework on them. The Easter holidays are much less pleasant than the Christmas ones. She and her friends spend most of them hiding out in their abandoned wing studying frantically. If only she’d been reborn in a world where she could have gone to a muggle school where she already knew the subjects. Arithmancy was similar enough to normal maths, and Ancient Runes weren’t that bad with her experience in languages, but Herbology and Potions could be deadly if one didn’t pay attention. Consider Devil’s Snares, a plant capable of strangling a giant. Also, first-year material.

She is not looking forward to her O.W.L.s, much less her N.E.W.T.s if third-year was making her that stressed.

Beltain is a breath of fresh air. Literally. Similar to Samhain, they feast on wild magic in an empty pasture, dancing around bonfires. Girls and women are showered with dew to bring beauty and maintain youthfulness. She returns with a crown of yellow flowers in her hair which she preserves with a spell. It’ll last her a long time.

The entire festival never fails to feel ironic to her. Before being called Death Eaters, Voldemort’s followers were named the Knights of Walpurgis after a Christian feast happening on the same day. Muggles would pray to Saint Walpurga to protect them from witchcraft. In some places, they would erect bonfires with a witch puppet and burn them. Sudden black and dense smoke formations are cheered as ‘a witch flying away’. How the man’s ever gotten purebloods to actually believe in his ideologies was a mystifying thought. 

Nine days later, they wake up to twenty points gone from their hourglass and a hundred fifty points less in the Gryffindor one. She groans when she sees it. Something was telling her Harry had been involved.

Malfoy the Younger was all too happy to explain how it happened after classes in their Snake Pit.

“A dragon.” His cousin repeats disbelievingly. “That groundskeeper’s oaf was raising a dragon. In his flammable hut.”

“I’ve seen it.”  Malfoy the Younger boasts. “Black with horns and those great bulging, orange eyes…”

“That sounds like a Norwegian Ridgeback.” James – the most knowledgeable in all thing beast – states, an eyebrow raised in skepticism. “They’re venomous.”

Bole blinks thoughtfully. “Isn’t the youngest weasel in the Hospital Wing for a weird bite?”

Pucey grins at his teammate. “How much you wanna bet the dragon’s the cause?”

“No bet.” Flint throws his arms around their shoulders. “They’re Gryffindors. They’ve never learned not to tickle the sleeping dragon.”

Sitting on a nearby couch, she feels like banging her head on a table. “Don’t tell me my little brother decided that instead of going to a teacher for help, he’ll try to get rid of the dragon himself?”

Oh, she knew all about Norbert(a). Problem was, she couldn’t recollect when it had happened and had to let it play out without her assistance. She’d have suggested they at least talk to Dumbledore. He liked Hagrid, he’d have let the half-giant get away with his law-breaking without repercussions.

“I found a letter telling the weasel to get the dragon to the tallest tower at midnight on Saturday to be picked up.” Malfoy the Younger tattles gleefully. “Potter, Granger, and Longbottom must have gotten caught on the way back.”

“And you’ve gotten caught too.” Malfoy the Older crosses his arms. “Honestly Draco, I applaud you for trying to get Gryffindors into trouble, but couldn’t you have told Professor Snape about it instead of wandering the hallways at night too? Or better yet, anonymously tipped off McGonagall about students planning mischief in that general area at that specific time? What I am supposed to tell your mother when she asks about your detention?”

Even she has to titter when the snakelet looks abashed. Cute.

“Now, now.” Malfoy’s girlfriend pacifies her man. “He’s still a little boy. He’ll grow, he’ll get smarter. Next time, he’ll think it through better.”

“I will.” The said boy assures them earnestly.

“You better.” Farley threatens him and that was that.

Losing all those points in one go makes things slightly harder for her brother in his House. During meals and when they cross paths in hallways, she sees his Housemates snub him. Until then, he’d been enjoying a Boy-Who-Lived-And-Who-Got-Cheated-Out-Of-His-Rightful-Spot-On-The-Team reputation with them.

Gryffindor already had been doing badly, but Harry’s blunder unquestionably knocked them out of the running for the House Cup. After their disastrous performance on the Quidditch Pitch and that fight during Quirrell’s class, they had absolutely no chance of fulfilling their hopes and dreams of defeating her House for the first time in seven years.

Slytherin had just barely maintained their lead through sheer willpower, help from their Head of House, and the four-hundred-thirty extra points they had won from Gryffindor on the Pitch earlier in the year.

It would have been worse in the original timeline when he would have gotten his spot on the team, and had been a Quidditch hero who would had briefly allowed Gryffindor to take the lead in points.

It’s when she’s trying to talk to her brother again, planning on taking advantage of his isolation-created loneliness in his House to get back into his good graces that she gets into another brawl with the Weasley twins. 

She’d been minding her own business, walking up the stairs with the intention of loitering with Ava at a hallway intersection she knew Harry took often when someone casts a Glisseo under their feet. The two of them go tumbling ass over teakettle down the slide with terrified screams to the familiar laughter of their assailants.

She lands badly, hitting her head hard against the stone floor. It wasn’t bad enough for a concussion, she thinks, but damn did it hurt. She’s going to have one hell of a bruise there.

They’ve been lucky, she realized with cold certainty. Had they been any higher on the steps, this could have killed them. They could have broken their necks. And they thought it was funny. The Weasley twins thought almost killing them was funny.

She’d been aware wizards had a bit of a screwed-up mentality when it came to their own mortality. It came with all the spells and potions that could fix up the worst of wounds in seconds. Wizards also tended to be unconsciously protected by their magic in dangerous situations that allowed them to otherwise survive fatal accidents. Like Longbottom, when he fell from his broom during his first flying lesson and walked away with only a broken wrist. This protection allowed them to take the stupidest risks a muggle would have never even considered and come out of them if not fine, then not permanently injured for life. And their lesser sense for danger meant the teachers would not consider her and Ava’s fall an accidental murder attempt.

It made her blood boil; the wizards casually disregard for the safety of the people around them. She’d gone far in the Slytherins war against the Gryffindors, but she’d never gone that far. She’d always been careful. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, harsh words in reply to harsh words, an embarrassing spell in response to an embarrassing spell, she purposely calculated her retorts to be equal to the slights against her. If they could dish it out, then they could take the same.

“Dahlia?” She lifts herself off the floor on trembling arms, face covered by her hair. Ava is kneeling at her side, a wand of rowan and unicorn hair, 10 inches long, pliable with a small amethyst dangling from the handle’s end similar to a bracelet charm in her hand. According to Ollivander’s, it was perfect for protection and healing. “Oh, Merlin. Look at you! Hold still, episkey.”

There is a cold-hot sensation on her forehead. She peers at her friend in concern, noting the red scratches on her face. “Are you alright?”

Ava smiles. “Just a scrape or two. Now, episkey won’t remove the bruise and it can only temporarily relieve the pain, so be careful.”

Satisfied that neither of them seemed like she was going to kneel over dead from an internal wound, her fingers clench around her own wand – darkly stained maple, phoenix feather, 11 ¾ inches, supple with a handle of Canadian Labradorite so smoothly joined it was like it was all a single piece with the wood. It reminded her of the epoxy resin art crafts she’d seen in her previous life. It was very beautiful. Elegant. She whips around to threatened the twins – who hadn’t taken the chance to escape while she was preoccupied, morons – with it. “What’s the big idea?!” She demands angrily. “Why’d you have to have Ava involved too?! She’s got nothing to do with this. She’s never said a bad word to either of you.”

“She’s friends with you, isn’t she? And she’s a Nott too.” One of the twin shrugs. “Can’t be all that soft and fluffy even if she is in Hufflepuff.”

She grits her teeth. Again, with the prejudice. Ava might have been a Nott, a so-called Dark family of traditionalistic purebloods, however, that didn’t stop her from being one of the kindest people she knew. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. She dreamed of being a Healer.

The other glances at the blond girl indifferently. She had stood up to brushed off her pricey Acromantula silk skirt and was inspecting it for rips with thinned lips. “I’d say I’m sorry, but Mum taught me not to lie and to ignore snooty purebloods.”

She bristles at the insults. “Apologise, weasels.”

His bother opens his mouth again and clearly not to apologize, but she’s faster. “Mimblewimble!”

Kyle’s Christmas present comes in useful. It was her first time casting the Tongue-Tying Curse she had found she’d found in Curses and Counter-Curses, but her private theory was that heightened emotions helped perform magic which is why mainly only young children, unable to control what they were feeling, performed accidental acts of magic without wands.

Of course, the other weasel – Fred, according to the jumper underneath his open robes, how ill-mannered – retaliates. She deflects the spell with a weak version of the Shield Charm, an enchantment she had begun learning in her first year and had yet to perfect. It was horribly complicated and tended to shatter after one hit. No wonder adult wizards had difficulties with it. She was a long way from a Protego Horribilis or a Protego Maxima. Protego Diabolica, on the other hand… Dark Arts tended to be easier to use. Not that she ever cast it. She just… knew the incantation and the wand movement, that’s all. She’d heard discussions about it in the Common Room.

Ava backs away to hide behind a suit of armor that helpfully moves its buckler to cover her with it. Some of that Slytherin self-preservation had rubbed off her, having been surrounded by them since birth. She didn’t enjoy fighting, she didn’t appreciate getting in trouble, so she got out of the way and watched from a safe spot. Dahlia didn’t mind. It was the smartest thing to do when you didn’t have a vengeful temper like hers.

A portrait of a fat man in 16^th-century clothing gibbers something and disappears from his frame when one of her spells hits the wall beside it. George joins the fight, his tongue untied. She’ll have to remember for future use; the Tongue-Tying Curse doesn’t work for long.  

“What’s your problem with me?!” She cries out, evading an apple green light. “I didn’t start this! You did!”

Their grudge had worsened to real spells fights only in their second year. Before that, it had been sabotages in class and harsh words. She’d tried to stay uninvolved and act like the adult she mentally was, but one ruined homework too many and her temper had finally snapped.

“You’re a slimy traitor!” Fred answers. “Potters have been Gryffindors for centuries.”

“And?! Is that it?!” She actually stamps her foot in frustration. “I haven’t been raised a Potter, remember? My parents were killed when I was three.”

George scowls, casting a reddish spell. “You associate with the kids of Death Eaters.”

She laughs spitefully. “I have to get along with my Housemates, don’t I?! You fancy being smothered in your sleep with a pillow?”

Avery would do it without a blink too.

“You’re the one who ruined Alicia’s potion last week.” Fred spits.

She throws another Tongue-Tying Curse at George. “She called me a muggle-hating bitch!”

He avoids it. “She’s right! You’re also vindictive, apparently.”

“I don’t hate muggles!” She protests, spinning out of the way of his Bat-Bogey Hex.

“What is this! Again!” Professor McGonagall comes storming into the scene, the portrait fat man sliding through frames behind her. She lowers her wand with a pout. Tattletale. “Detention! You, Messrs. Weasley may join Professor Snape in the dungeons tomorrow, and you, Miss. Potter, may join your brother tonight at eleven o’clock to meet Mr. Filch in the Entrance Hall. And twenty points off each!” Aw man, and she had just been released from her detention for the classroom fight too. Because of the number of people involved, their punishment times were spread out as to not overwhelm the teachers. She’d been among the last to serve her sentence and had spent two weeks straight scrubbing dirty cauldrons and polishing armour every evening for hours without break. If she ever had to see another brush again, it would be too soon. “Miss. Nott, next time, notify me. Don’t just stand there. Five points off for your inaction.”

Throwing an irritated glance at the twins, she puts her wand back into her fancy belt holster, and grabbing her satchel off the floor, she turns away with a huff. Ava slides out from behind the armour and giving a wide berth to the redheads approached her. Together, they make their escape back to their abandoned wing before some else decides to further ruin their day.

Chapter Text

Malfoy the Younger had detention too, so they go up to the meeting place together in strained silence. They didn’t interact often what with being in different years, but the few times they did made her certain of two things. One, she didn’t like him much, and two he really didn’t like her. For her, it was his egotistical attitude. For him, it was her family name. They operated on the unspoken agreement that she occasionally let him talk shit about her brother when she wasn’t around and in return he didn’t disrespect her in front of their Housemates by talking shit about her. Not only it would be embarrassing for her to have a rivalry with a firstie, but she also happened to like Malfoy the Older and he’d be obligated to fight on his cousin’s side if they started anything between each other.

Sometimes, Dahlia regretted being sorted into Slytherin with all its politicking, but then she’d remember why she was ready to beg the Hat to put her there after one ride on the Hogwarts Express where she got to know a few of the older students.

Hufflepuffs were naïve optimists who loved talking about feelings – eugh. And that cheerful smiling. All the bloody time, nonstop. Even when they were angry. It actually gets quite scary after a while. Made you think that their smiles were hiding something other than tooth-rotting kindness. If somebody told her the badgers were planning on taking over the world, she’d believe them, no questions asked.

Ravenclaws were introverted nerds who loved to debate. Don’t get her wrong, she loves debating too – they do plenty of that in the Pit – but Ravenclaws? They took it to a whole other level. And their obsessiveness! Once they got hooked on something they became tiny Frankensteins. The scientist. Not the monster. There is a lot of mad cackling involved. Especially when they haven’t slept in a couple of days because they are trying to keep up with their schoolwork while also completing their experiments. She enjoys reading and likes to think she’s smart, but unfortunately, due to waves in the general direction of Kyle who’s out after curfew and muttering something to himself while peering intently at a blank wall with a pile of parchment around him that, Ravenclaw’s a hard pass for her.

Gryffindors were… Gryffindors. Enough said.

So yeah, give her selfish, scheming, manipulative, racist, and egoistic little brats who’d like to murder her in her sleep any day over the rest of the crazies that called Hogwarts their school. Since she was just as selfish, scheming, and manipulative as them, she knew how to deal with them.

Filch was already waiting for them in the Entrance Hall and Dahlia sniffs, irked by his presence. Sure, she understood he was a Squib who Dumbledore had taken pity on, but c‘mon, man. In the first place, his position as Hogwarts’ Caretaker was completely redundant. How was he singlehandedly supposed to oversee the entire school’s cleanliness and hygiene without magic? The house-elves did their job perfectly without an overseer so he really was only in charge of patrolling corridors for students out of bed after hours or in forbidden areas, putting students in detention, doing jobs that the Headmaster required, and investigating contraband such as Dungbombs – all things teachers or prefects could easily do instead. The last of his responsibilities; security for Hogsmeade trips, mail, and people entering and leaving the castle should have been left to someone actually capable of detecting harmful spells. He wasn’t needed for the school to continue running smoothly. Nevertheless, she could have ignored all of that, if not for her biggest problem with the man; he should have never been let anywhere close to magical children what with him resenting the students for being able to use magic and hoping for corporal punishment to be allowed again. Honestly, she wholeheartedly believed he would have been happier amidst muggles. 

Soon enough, they are joined by an irritated Harry – Goodness, has he still not forgiven her? This was getting out of hand. – Hermione and Longbottom, and her stomach swoops unpleasantly as something tickles her mind. Was this something else she had forgotten?

“Follow me,” Filch said, lighting a lamp and leading them outside. Her palms begin to sweat and she nervously rubs her hands together. This wasn’t normal detention procedure. Outside? So late after curfew? On a school night? “I bet you’ll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won’t you, eh?” He continued, leering meanly at them. “Oh yes … hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me … It’s just a pity they let the old punishments die out … hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I’ve got the chains still in my office, keep ’em well-oiled in case they’re ever needed … Right, off we go, and don’t think of running off, now, it’ll be worse for you if you do.”

She shivers in disgust. Sadist.

They march off across the dark grounds in, as she began to understand with vague horror, the direction of the Forbidden Forest. Longbottom kept sniffling and Harry looked ill. Unbidden, her gaze travels up to the sky and she almost moans with relief when she spots the decidedly not full moon. Ahead, the lighted windows of Hagrid’s hut draw closer.

“Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started.” The half-giant calls. In the dark distance, he looked to be as tall as a normal human, though she knew from previous meetings with the half-man that he was as tall as the books had made him out to be and his beard even wilder.

“I suppose you think you’ll be enjoying yourself with that oaf? Well, think again, boy – it’s into the Forest you’re going and I’m much mistaken if you’ll all come out in one piece.” Filch tells Harry when he looks relieved at the sound of his friend’s voice.

Malfoy the Younger stops dead in his tracks and she almost walks into him, distracted by her own distress.

“No. Absolutely not.” She whispers at the final confirmation of their destination. Until then, she’d been holding out hope it was all some kind of mistake.

“The Forest?” Malfoy the Younger repeated and steps back to hide behind her. She would have been flattered in any other situation. The boy had correctly identified her as the most likely to successfully protect him in their little group if they were attacked. “We can’t go in there at night – there’s all sorts of things in there – werewolves, I heard.”

On full moons. Which today it wasn’t. Thank fuck. And she knew there had been at least one in the past because Lupin.

“That’s your lookout, isn’t it?” Filch says, his voice cracking with glee and she hates him a little for it. “Should’ve thought of them werewolves before you got in trouble, shouldn’t you?”

Hagrid came striding towards them out of the dark, a giant dog at his heel. He was carrying his large crossbow, and a quiver of arrows hung over his shoulder. His wand/umbrella was nowhere in sight.

“Abou’ time,” He rumbled. “I bin waitin’ fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Hermione?”

“I wouldn’t be too friendly to them, Hagrid,” Filch scolded him coldly, “they’re here to be punished, after all.”

“That’s why yer late, is it?” Hagrid frowns at Filch. “Bin lecturin’ them, eh? ’Snot your place ter do that. Yeh’ve done yer bit, I’ll take over from here.”

“I’ll be back at dawn,” Filch announces and then adds nastily, “for what’s left of them.” He turned and started back towards the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness.

“I’m not going in that Forest,” Malfoy the Younger announces immediately.

“Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts,” Hagrid says fiercely. “Yeh’ve done wrong an’ now yeh’ve got ter pay fer it.”

“No. He’s right.” Dahlia addresses someone for the first time since she had left the Pit. “We’re not going into the Forest. Forget it.” Never mind the usual dangers of that place, with the combined Potter luck of both her and Harry, it would be a complete disaster.

“Yeh’ll go or yeh’ll be expelled,” Hagrid warns the two of them, then seemingly dismisses them, turning back to his favorite lions. “Now, listen carefully, ’cause it’s dangerous what we’re gonna do tonight an’ I don’ want no one takin’ risks. Follow me over here a moment.”

The half-giant led them to the very edge of the Forest and she cautiously follows, Malfoy the Younger plastered to her side like a limpet. “What are you doing?” He hisses at her.

“I want to know what they want us to do in the Forbidden Forest at night for detention of all things.” She whispers back. “Don’t worry, we’re definitely not going inside.”

Like fuck is she going inside.

Holding his lamp up high, Hagrid pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. “Look there,” Hagrid says, “see that stuff shinin’ on the ground? Silvery stuff?”

“Don’t tell me!” She gasps inaudibly, eyes wide with shock, recognizing it from that one glimpse she had of the liquid in a Knockturn Alley shop.

“That’s unicorn blood.” Hagrid continues. “There’s a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We’re gonna split an’ follow the trail in diff’rent directions. There’s blood all over the place, it must’ve bin staggerin’ around since last night at least.”

Aaand that was enough for her. She might not remember what happened in the original timeline, but like hell, she was letting the lion firsties follow the absolute moron into the Forest.

“Granger,” She says because the girl was supposed to be smart. “what is the name of the forest?”

“The Forbidden Forest?” Hermione furrows her eyebrows at the unexpected and strange question. “It’s also called the Dark Forest.”
Her stiff smile spreads. “And why is it called the Forbidden Forest?” She prompts.

“Because… because it’s dangerous?” The girl pronounces slowly. “And we’re not allowed in there?”

“Exactly.” Dahlia nods with a projected calm she was not feeling. “So, all of you, please back away there.” The Gryffindors exchange glances. “Do you really think you’ll be able to fight off an Acromantula if one attacks?” She pleads with an edge of desperation in her voice. “And what if you really do stumble upon whatever is killing the unicorns? Such an act curses you for life. It’s bound to be very, very Dark to even seriously contemplate doing it, let alone actually do it. Do you know any offensive skills other than the usual prank spells? Trying to run away may not save you.”

“What’s an Acromantula?” Hermione asks, because of fucking course that’s what would catch her interest.

“Do you know who Shelob is?” She inquires in return and to her great delight, the girl pales. “That’s right,” Dahlia continues with relish. “Acromantulas are somewhat similar and the place is infested with hundreds of them.”

When Hermione takes several hurried steps away from the edge of the tree-line, Harry and Longbottom follow, albeit looking a little confused. 

“Now, wait a sec.” Hagrid protests. “They won’t hurt yeh.”

She ignores him. “Go back to your dorms.” She tells the Gryffindors. “I’ll deal with this, alright? I promise you won’t be expelled.”

“But –” Harry begins.

“Harry, your sister is right.” Hermione interrupts him. “We need to go. If those Acromantulas are anything like I think they are, we do not want to meet one. Think spider. Big, giant spider. Spider the size of a car with very potent venom.”

Smart, smart girl who her brother actually listens to.

“They also have a taste for human flesh.” She adds to see if that would get them to move a little faster. A hysterical little laugh bubbles in her chest when they do.

“Now, wait a –”

Rudely turning her back to the half-giant, she herds the firsties back up the slope to the castle.

She storms into the fifth-year boy dorm without bothering to knock and starts flinging open the fabric hanging close around the beds while searching for Malfoy the Older, uncaring of the screams of surprise the boys let out.

“Potter, what in the name of Merlin’s left wrinkly ball are you doing?!” Someone exclaims in the dark, clutching his blankets to his chest like a maiden. Poor repressed purebloods. Like she’d never seen a pair of male nipples before.

“Malfoy, I need you to write to your Aunt.” Dahlia declares to the room. “And your Uncle. And have your friends write their parents.”

Another boy hisses angrily. “Can’t you do this tomorrow?”

“It is already tomorrow.” She tells him.

His pillow wandlessly chucks itself at her. “I meant when the sun is up and the birds are singing!”

“No.” She insists. “This needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible.”

“Lumos.” Malfoy the Older’s sleep-disheveled blond hair becomes visible in the light cast by his wand three beds over. “What happened?”

“Tonight’s detention would have consisted of four split-up firsties, among them your little cousin, searching for a unicorn killer in the Dark Forest long after curfew with only me – a third-year student – and Hagrid – a third-year expelled student without a wand – as protection.” She rattles off serenely.  

There is a ringing silence.

“Merlin.” Malfoy the Older swears and tumbles out of bed. “Does Professor Snape know?”

“I don’t know.” She admits and wraps her arms around herself. “I hope not. They threatened to expel us if we didn’t go.”

“Merlin,” Saunders says too. “Who were the other first years?”
“Potter, Longbottom, and Granger.” Malfoy the Younger says from where he was loitering at the door.

Malfoy the Older approaches and wraps his blankets around her. Over her shoulder, he glances at his cousin. “Draco, go get Professor Snape. Tell him to bring a Calming Draught.”

The kid runs off and she’s sat on the closest bed. “I promised them they won’t be expelled.” Dahlia says. “They can’t do this to us, can they?”

“You won’t be.” Malfoy the Older reassures her. “Dumbledore would never allow your brother to be expelled and it’d look very bad if the rest of you are and he isn’t.”

Right. Right. She should have thought of that. Must have been the shock. First-years, hunting down unicorn killers. Alone. In the Forbidden Forest. At night. What the hell. This was this height of stupidity. Aurors were in charge of things like that! Grown wizards trained for this shit! Not first-year students!

The other Slytherin prefects are woken, and they join them in the dorm, shooing off Malfoy the Older’s dormmates to the Common Room.

Professor Snape comes sweeping in a few minutes later, a dark scowl on his face, and dressed in dark silk pajamas and an open equally dark silk bathrobe. He was barefoot and his hair was gathered in a small tail.

“What happened?” He demands, dropping down to be at her level, and shoving a cup of warm milk into her hands. It was likely to be spiked with the requested Calming Draught. She sips at it anyway.

The prefects quiet down around them, also interested in what could be important enough to wake them up in the middle of the night.

“I had detention tonight for the fight with the Weasley twins today.” She recounts again. “Eleven o’clock, Entrance Hall, that’s what Professor McGonagall told me.”

“That late?” Farley wonders. “That’s after curfew on a school day. By the time you were done, it would have been early morning.”
“It was a joint detention.” She continues. “With Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, and my brother. Punishment for that thing with the dragon, I think. We were led by Filch to Hagrid’s hut where we were informed we were going into the Forbidden Forest to track down a unicorn killer.” Dahlia raises her voice over the sudden outraged clamor. “Hagrid wanted us to spilt-up and threatened us with expulsion if we refused to comply.”

“I wouldn’t have let them.” Professor Snape says in that scary soft tone of voice he sometimes used when he was really angry. “Now, why did you come here?” He asks “Why not to me?”

She shrugs. “Wasn’t thinking clearly. I wanted Malfoy to write to his Uncle. And the others to write to their parents too. I wanted the rich and influential adults to be outraged by the type of detention their children could get. I wanted people to fight for my expulsion if it came to that.”

The man rises to his feet. “I will be writing to Lucius. The rest of you, start composing to your parents and any other Ministry employee you have connections with.”

“Yes, sir.” There is an obedient murmur.

She drains her cup.

The next morning, she’s approached during breakfast by two Gryffindors, heedless on the glares of the rest of her House. Hermione was clutching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them tightly to her chest and her brother was shifting nervously behind her. Ron was peering anxiously at them from their own House table.

“I’ve read up on Acromantulas,” Hermione tells her haughtily. “There aren’t very much like Shelob.”

“Why not?” She smiles. “They’re all enormous spiders who’d love to eat you.”

“Who’s Shelob?” Burke asks.

She shrugs, spreading jam on her piece of toast. “Famous fictional man-eating spider.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” Warrington comments, putting down his teacup. “What book is it from?”

“She.” Professor Snape unexpectedly comments behind her. “And the author was a muggle.”

Dahlia chokes, twisting in her seat to stare at the man with wide eyes.

“You know Tolkien, Professor Snape?” Hermione asks eagerly.

“What are you dawdling here for?” He snaps and heads off to the High Table.

Several Slytherin snicker at the girl’s dejected expression. 

She shakes her head in amusement and contemplates for a second wizard fiction. It, she had found, was severely lacking. They had shitty imaginations. Attempting to pass Tolkien for a wizard would have never worked. He was too original for them. Part of the problem was their unwillingness to consider any other form of magic other than theirs. They’d never write about someone like say, Zatanna Zatara, Harry Dresden, or Nita Callahan. They also didn’t seem to know it was possible to write about other worlds. It was always Earth in this century, Earth in that century, never Charn or Discworld or Ga’hoole. And the less said about their sci-fi selection, the better. As a half-blood, it made a lot of sense for Snape to look outside the Wizarding world for good reading material.

“What do you want, Granger, Potter?” Malfoy the Younger sneers.

“Nothing with you, Malfoy.” Harry retorts.

“Don’t.” She pleads, rubbing her forehead. “Don’t start an argument this early in the morning.”
“We wanted to thank you.” Hermione intervenes. “For yesterday.”

She waves a careless hand. “No need. This was as much for myself as it was for you. And frankly, I care a lot more about Harry than I care about you.”

Hermione was replaceable. Ron was replaceable. If anything happened to them, she – or anyone else really – could take their place in the plot, albeit unhappily. If anything happened to Harry… Well, they were fucked, as simple as that. How did it go again: either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives? Prophecies.

Hermione elbows her brother.

“You should have been nicer to Hagrid.” Harry mumbles at the prompt and Hermione’s displeased face told her that wasn’t what she had wanted him to say.

“Harry,” She says delicately, folding her hands in her lap. “as nice as I’m sure Hagrid is, he’s not qualified to supervise students in the Forbidden Forest. No,” Her tone of voice hardens when he looked about to argue. “no, just listen, alright? His idea to split us up could have gotten one of the groups killed because they would have had no way to protect themselves. If you were attacked by hundreds of giant spiders twice your size and as intelligent as a human at the same time, could you have defended yourself with the spells you know?” Harry shakes his head, though he was evidently doing it grudgingly. She ignores the urge to shout triumphantly. Progress! About damn time. “If the attacked group had indeed managed to send up sparks, by the time Hagrid would have found them it would have more than likely been too late. And even if he did come in time, what could he have done? He can’t use magic. His only weapons were a crude crossbow and arrows set. His size isn’t everything. Had he had a machine gun and several clips of additional ammo, I might have agreed to go with him.” She smiles lightly. “Believe me, I have nothing in particular against Hagrid. I barely know the man.” Let’s shelf the topic about suitable pets in a school full of children for another day, shall we? They were lucky Norbert(a) hadn’t bitten off any stray fingers. “I would also not have minded detention in the Forest if it had been done in daytime, doing something simple like gathering potion ingredients, under the supervision of a real teacher – Snape, McGonagall, Flitwick… Two or three seventh-year students would have worked too. But this? This was severely out of line on part of all the adults who were aware of this.” The Slytherins around them, who weren’t even trying to hide their eavesdropping, all nod in complete agreement. “I just want what’s best for you, Harry.” Dahlia gets up to wrap him in an unpracticed and rigid hug. “I’m sorry about Quidditch, but you can always try next year. And I’m sure Hagrid won’t be punished too badly.” At least, not with Dumbledore protecting him.

Seconds tick by and Harry finally relaxes enough to wrap his own arms around her. “You won’t stop me?”

“I promise.” She reassures him. “I won’t say a word.”

They release the hug, and Harry steps away.

As they turn to walk away, she calls out. “Hermione?” The girl turns around. “Thank you for talking sense into my foolish little brother. Keep up the good work.”

Hermione flushes pink and hurries away with a skip in her step. Cute.

Now, how much longer can she avoid talking about her hiding magic from Harry? They have just begun reconciliating. She’d hate to ruin it again with another argument. Thank fuck he seemed to have forgotten about it for the moment.

Turning back to her breakfast, she barely manages to take a bite before they are disturbed again. This time by Lucius Malfoy entering the Great Hall, looking as impassive as ever, dressed to the nines and confident, but the hand clutching forcefully at his walking stick betraying his anger.

“Think this is about yesterday’s detention too?” James whispers at her as the Chairman of their Board of Governors strides forward into the suddenly much quieter room.

She gives a small nod, suddenly very interested with her bowl. The whole story hadn’t been spread yet, but everyone in Slytherin knew something had happened related to her and Malfoy the Younger. She was planning on having a nice long chat with her friends once they had gathered in their usual spot after class.

Lucius Malfoy stops by their table, running his pale gaze over the students, and his son straightens when they pass over him. They pause on her and she lowers her spoon of gruel.

“Miss Potter,” He drawls silkily. “I hear I have you to thank for my son’s safety.”

“It’s nothing.” She demurs, meeting his grey eyes before her own dart back down to the table. “I haven’t done anything another Slytherin wouldn’t have done.” 

“Humph.” He says and walks away. Dahlia lets out a trembling breath. How she hated interacting with Death Eaters. Scared her stiff every single time. Unfortunately, with her Housemates, it happened far more often than she’d preferred.

They all watch as the man exchanges several words too low to be overheard with Dumbledore at the High Table before they leave with Snape and McGonagall. She hopes the Board of Governors was called. She hopes this wasn’t swept under the table and forgotten.

She’d never realized before how many problems Hogwarts had. In the Muggle world, such a detention would have never been allowed. It was like asking unarmed students to search the nearby woods for a rabid wolf. An adult who would have tried to pull such a stunt would have spent some time in jail.

She doesn’t manage to concentrate on her classes the next few days which was not good since the end of the year exams where coming up. Having slept badly the couple of hours she managed to do so each night, and having spent that time tormented by nightmares of her and the firsties being ripped apart by Shelob lookalikes from Peter Jackson’s Return of the King movie while Hagrid is being absolutely useless on the sidelines, she kept nodding off in the middle of the lecture. From time to time, Quirrelmort appeared, dripping in silver blood.

Yeah, she had eventually sketchily remembered the original happenings. She’d almost thrown up when she realized Quirrelmort could have been alone with her brother in an isolated location without her intervention. Who knew what would have happened if not for that centaur. Not that she was happy about that either. As unwilling to harm children as their kind usually was, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t if provoked.

Anyway, due to her nightmares, her Cheering Charm in Charm class turns out to be the opposite whenever she cast it. Professor Flitwick forbid her from practicing on anyone outside the supervision of a teacher who could reverse the violent rage she caused in her partners. In Transfiguration, her Color-Changing Charm always turned pitch black. In Herbology, she accidentally sets fire to her Puffapod. Thankfully, in Potions, Professor Snape takes one look at her and sends her off to take a nap before she killed them all by exploding her cauldron due to inattention.

By the end of the week, she’s an exhausted wreck. She’s not even sure why she had reacted that poorly. Maybe, she thinks morosely, it was all the stress finally catching up to her. Years of worrying about the Dark Lord and it’s the school itself that ends up almost killing Harry the most often.

On Friday, walking to their abandoned wing to meet up with the Nott siblings, she and James accidentally stumble upon an unknown man speaking to Dumbledore in the hallway. Old, but not as old as the Headmaster, he wore a threadbare blue coat despite the heat and he carried an old-fashioned, leather suitcase in his hand. One of the latches flips open and the man absentmindedly closes it. There is a flash of green in his hair. Some kind of living creature with a stick-like body. A bowtruckle? It was rare to see one away from its native tree.

“Blimey!” James gasps and bodily heaves her behind a corner. She strangles a surprised squeak in her throat. “That’s Newt Scamander! What’s he doing here?”

She cranes her neck in an attempt to see the man’s face, but he was standing with his back to them. Which was a pity, she wanted to see how closely he resembled Eddie Redmayne who she had always found cute.

It was something she had noticed previously, people often greatly resembling the actors that had played them in the movies. It wasn’t exact, Severus Snape was in reality much younger than Alan Rickman, but there were similarities. For Snape specifically, the best match was the voice, the mannerism, and the way he dressed. It was hot.  

The biggest differences were usually the features that had been mentioned in the books and the actors didn’t have. Fred and George were shorter and stockier than the Phelps. Harry was smaller than Daniel Radcliffe and had the unforgettable green eyes. Ron was taller and frecklier than Rupert Grint. Hermione was almost Emma Watson’s twin copy with bigger teeth while Marcus Flint had normal ones and did not look like he had troll blood.

Interestingly enough, Trelawney reminded her more of Tilda Swinton, one of her favorites. A very Eve from Only Lovers Left Alive Tilda Swinton. Oh, how she loved that movie. A much better love story than Twilight.

She was also strangely excited to meet Bellatrix. According to that one photo of her she’d seen, she really was a lot like Helena Bonham Carter, another of her favorites.

“You’re lucky I was still here.” The famed Magizoologist was telling the Headmaster who was more of a Michael Gambon than a Richard Harris in a soft, awkward voice. “A couple more days, and I would have been in Africa.”

“I’m grateful for your help. Really.” The old man sighs heavily. “The house-elves have already prepared rooms for you and your associates. Will you be joining us for dinner in the Great Hall?”

“No, thank you. I think I’d like to go down to the Forest.”

“They are probably here for the Acromantulas.” James later gushes. According to his mother, he’d been a fan of Newt Scamander even before he could read. “They’ll be helping relocate them away from Hogwarts.”

“Dumbledore needs to be seen doing something.” Kyle nods decidedly. “Did you see the number of owls he had in the last week? Fifty years.” He bemoans. “Why did it take him that long do something about the infestation?”

Because Aragog was Hagrid’s precious pet? And Dumbledore let the half-giant do whatever he wanted with his monsters even if that apparently meant risking the chance of disobedient students wandering right into the webs of an XXXXX Class Beast? She’s genuinely surprised no one had been killed yet. They had gotten very, very fortunate.

“My ears are still ringing from all those Howlers.” She grumbles and Ava giggles. Slytherin parents had been very happy to have a legitimate reason to yell at the man. Turned out, a lot of people didn’t know why exactly the Forbidden Forest was forbidden because they had been obedient little students. They hadn’t been thrilled by the news.

“It was your idea.” James points out with a grin.

Dahlia beams back, unrepentant. The spiders weren’t big in terms of plot, right? So why not organize a little spring cleaning by incensing overprotective parents? Molly Weasley had an impressive pair of lungs on her.

“But what was Professor McGonagall thinking assigning that detention?” Kyle disappointedly shakes his head.

She shrugs non-committedly, suspecting that either the woman didn’t know what Hagrid was planning on having them do, or that it had actually been Dumbledore’s orders. The second seemed more likely and it could have been why she had been sent with them instead of being given a separate detention. After the Quidditch incident, Professor McGonagall could have been hoping she’d raise a fuss about this too. It was very Slytherin of her and she couldn’t even be mad about it because she’d have flipped out worse if she hadn’t been there.

“How can this be the safest place in the world with neighbors like that?” Ava asks quietly.

She laughs bitterly in response. “It isn’t.”

Chapter Text

Monday, June 5th,1992

Well, on the bright side, at least the exams are over? That’s something.

And in less happy news, my life freaking sucks, and I’m fucking exhausted living it. Why the hell did I have to be reborn as Harry Potter’s sister? I’d give anything to be some unremarkable half-blood with two unremarkable middle-class half-blood parents. But nooo, I just had to be born to the Potters. And Hogwarts just had to have moving staircases. Whose idea even was it? What’s the point? To look cool? To make students run late for class? To help Dark Lords kidnap poor, unfortunate students minding their own business?

FUCK! I wanted to remain uninvolved in the grand plot! Was that too much to ask for?! God! Death! ROB! Whoever’s fucking responsible for me being stuck in a fucking fictional universe! Answer me, goddammit! Couldn’t you have just let me die in peace? Why me? What in the world did I do to deserve this! Kicked puppies and ate babies for breakfast?

*Angry scribbling over the entire next page*

Future me, please use a Time-Turner and tell me this is the last time I get involved in the plot to this extent. It’s 6:29 pm as I’m writing this in the abandoned classroom on the fourth floor, you know the place. I’m alone.

It’s been five minutes and you’re not here. So, I have no choice but to conclude this won’t be the last time. Darn.

Right. Take a deep breath and calm down.

One. Two. Three.

Where to begin… June 1^st? Yeah, let’s go with that.

So, on June 1^st –

Dahlia calms down from her Forbidden Forest scare by exam time. With her mind busy with frantic revisions of her notes for the following day’s examinations, she fell into bed after midnight and slept like the dead until morning. There were no nightmares and her only fatigue was from staying up late studying.

There was also her little business to take distract her. Selling copies of her notes to her year-mates and the ones below her was surprisingly lucrative. Hermione had been scandalized when she had caught her stealthily pocketing money from a second-year Hufflepuff in the Library. According to the firstie lion, Dahlia should have been doing it for free if she was going to help others laze around all year anyway. Yeah, right.

She does well on her exams, breezing through the written portions despite wanting to swear at the uncomfortable Anti-Cheating Quills and the sweltering hot weather. Her clothes weren’t spelled with Cooling Charms like the rest of her Housemates since she’d seen it as a needlessly expensive frivolity and she was now left to either suffer in silence or to bother an older student until they did it for her. Understandably, she chooses the latter option, even though their spells didn’t last like the professional ones.

Hilariously enough, she remembers half an hour after her Ancient Runes exam that she had mixed up ehwaz with eihwaz after she passes Hermione in a hallway. She recalled the strangest things. Why did such a minor detail stick in her mind and not Quidditch or the Forest? Honestly.

The practical exams were a little more complicated, but her teapot turned into a beautiful Red-Footed Tortoise during Transfiguration and she finally succeeded in casting a proper Cheering Charm in Charms. In Potions, her Confusion Concoction thickened perfectly, and in the Ancient Runes practical, they were assigned an out-loud reading from an expert of a poem in Latin and another in Ancient Greek both of which had Professor Babbling complimenting her on her pronunciation.

Care of Magical Creatures, where they had to collect the venom of a sleeping Acromantula under Newt Scamander’s supervision, might have been the exam she had done the worse. She had been expecting a Diricawl like the one the previous year’s Slytherin Care students had, and Acromantulas were usually sixth-year material, but despite the deviation from the normal curriculum, Professor Kettleburn hadn’t wanted to pass up the chance to show his all students one of the giant spiders close and personal while there were professionals on hand to quickly subdue the specimen if things went wrong. Unfortunately for her, she hadn’t been listening keenly that day because she had spent the entire class time grimacing in disgust and shooting the teacher mean looks and so had fumbled a bit when it came up in the exam.

Unsurprisingly, Hagrid was utterly heartbroken at the deportation of his beloved friend and his family. She spots the Golden Trio visiting often and his occasional heavy sobs during dinner do make her a tad guilty. But not enough to go up to him to apologize. Acromantulas had no place in a school’s backyard.  

FYI, Newt Scamander does look like Redmayne. Just a very old one. Still cute, though.

It was one the evening of the 4^th, just after dinner, that it happens.

Having finished her final exam, she was hurrying alone to the abandoned classroom on the fourth floor to meet up with her friends when she gets turned around by the stairs. The one she was on suddenly switches directions halfway like they sporadically do and she disembarks on the wrong landing.

Huffing in frustration, she prepares herself to wait for the next staircase to swing around –

I should have realized. I should have never stepped foot off that last step. I should have run screaming at the top of my voice.

“Mm-miss Ppottter.” An awfully familiar says behind her.

Her stomach drops. Slowly, she turns around.

Professor Quirrell frowns nervously at her from where he was standing next to a particular door she was now realizing was on the forbidden third floor, his wand in his hand but thankfully still pointed at the floor.

Shit.

“Hello, professor.” Dahlia carefully articulates through numb lips. “I’m sorry, I know we’re not allowed up here, but the staircase moved on me. I’ll be leaving as soon as I can.”

“It’s aaalright. I uunde-derstand.” The man tells her. “Yyou’re noot in-in tttrouble. Aa-actuallly, Pr-pr-professor Ddu-dumbledore aasked me to do him aa favor-or.” The Death Eater possessed by his Lord continues stuttering, unaware of the fear his words were awaking in her. He pauses, then smiles. “I could use your help.”

“I don’t know how I could help.” She murmurs in response. “I’m just a third-year student. Wouldn’t a prefect be better? I think I saw Percy Weasley on the previous floor. Maybe I can get him for you?”

“No, no,” The man wasn’t bothering to act nervous anymore and radiated self-assured confidence. “you’re just what I need.”

Damn, where’s her wand?

Keeping my bun in place and being impossible to grab unnoticed, where else?

I need to break that bad habit of shoving anything remotely pencil-like into my hair when I don’t have an elastic on hand.

Quirrellmort lifts his wand and she freezes like a deer freezes in the headlights. He doesn’t even need to cast a spell to keep her immobile when he approaches and yanks out her wand, leaving her curls to tumble freely around her shoulders. She knows when she’s outclassed. The moment she had made a move toward her head, she’d have lost.

He examines Dahila’s wand with a smug air. Proud that he’d disarmed a fourteen-year-old, huh?

“Pretty.” The prick comments and throws it contemptuously to the side. She bristles internally at the careless handling.

Wands were strange. They weren’t just pieces of wood. When Ollivander’s said they choose their owners, not the other way around, he was right. They weren’t sentient, but there was something about them… The first time she had held her own in that tiny shop, it had been like meeting an old friend for the first time.

She was proud of her wand. Polished it often and didn’t handle it like it was a sturdy stick that wouldn’t break if she sat on it, Goyle. It was a wand, fuck it all! Her own real magic wand! A lifelong dream come true! She’d be devasted if it fell apart to pieces even if she knew it could be easily replaced.

Holding his alder wand on her, Quirrellmort passes his other hand over the handle of the door. The lock clicks open.

And this is where I have a hard time believing Dumbledore is nothing but a kind old man. Who the fuck secures a priceless artifact with a door that could be unlocked by a first-year spell that we are taught in class?

Oh my god, were there even any intruder alarms set? Considering the amount of time Gryffindors had snuck in there with no consequences, I’d have to say no, unless Dumbledore had been deliberately ignoring all of the children he’s responsible for that were inches from being mauled by a dog several times their size trained to attack unknown people.

Her first sight of Fluffy was terrifying and it didn’t get better the longer she stared. He fit the whole space between the ceiling and the floor, and from his muzzles full of yellowish, sharp fangs hung disgusting strands of saliva. Breed-wise, he looked a lot like a Rottweiler who were known for their aggressiveness and for occasionally killing humans. And that’s when the males grew to only about 70 cm rounded in height.

As if that wasn’t scary enough, there was also the fact that avoiding death by a Cerberus, doesn’t mean you get away scot-free either. Cerberi aren’t like werewolves. Their bites aren’t cursed, but they will mess you up. Some property of their saliva means the healing speed of the wound is inhibited and neither magic nor potions work well on them. It was why Professor Snape spent so long limping after Halloween. They will pain you for the rest of your life.

All three heads growl and she gulps. There goes her dream of ever owning a dog. Also, hello more nightmares.

“Sing.” Quirrellmort prods her in the back with his wand.

Very unwillingly, Dahlia opens her mouth and shakily stammers out the beginning bars of the first song she could think of. Fluffy cocks his heads in confusion.

“What is this drivel?” Quirrellmort exclaims in disgust.

“Muggle song.” She mumbles and shuts up, feeling strangely insulted.

Here I am, an enormous Cerberus looming over me and Voldemort himself behind me and I suddenly forget to be scared out of my mind because I’m too busy pouting.

Considering the stuff wizards listen to, they have no right dissing I Wanna Be Your Dog. The Stooges are great. You wish the Weird Sisters were as good. “Shake your booty like a boggart in pain”? Really?

Scoffing, the man conjures a harp and it begins to play a soothing song. Fluffy nearly instantly yawns. Soon enough, he curls up and his hot and smelly breath deepens. It wasn’t cute. If she’d been wearing boots, she’d be still shaking in them.

Also, was she remembering correctly the plot, and did Quirrell really spend months searching for a way to subdue the giant dog to the point of tricking Hagrid with an almost impossibly hard-to-get and very expensive dragon egg while he was drunk or something? He only had to crack open Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It was all there. She checked. It even suggested spells for the music.

It did make somewhat sense, though. She had a hard time imagining Tom Riddle being very interested in the care of animals, no matter how magical. He had most likely taken Runes and Arithmancy as his elective courses and ignored Care.     

Feeling much more relaxed with the immediate danger of being maimed to death by an oversized dog gone and strangely amused by the image of Voldemort attempting to interact with a Hippogriff without offending it, Dahlia squirts the edge of what she judges to be Fluffy’s lunging range – trusting him not to be a light sleeper was hard. She moves over to the trapdoor which she’s then forced to heave open with a grunt. Together with Quirellmort, she eyes the pitch-black hole.

“I’m going first, aren’t I?” She sighs.

Quirrellmort looks unamused. “Get to it.”

She doesn’t dillydally and just jumps, hands holding onto the back of her skirt to prevent it from flipping up.

It was a lot less scary when she knew it would be a soft landing, but she can’t help screaming the whole way down as cold, damp air rushed past her. It was a lot further down than she had expected and falling in the dark an undetermined distance will never not be frightening.

Landing on her back, she immediately feels the Devil’s Snare’s creepers start twisting around her. She doesn’t bother struggling. There was nothing she could do anyway since wandless light or fire was not something she could consistently produce and especially not in a situation where she was unable to properly concentrate.  

“Potter?” Quirrellmort calls down, his head – made enormous by his turban – barely visible in the postage-stamp-sized trapdoor.

“It’s fine to jump.” She replies with a wheeze as her chest is squeezed tight by tendrils.

The man lands beside her with a muffled thump. “A Devil’s Snare, after all.” His voice dripped with revulsion. “I was certain it would be a Venomous Tentacula.”

A simple overpowered Lumos Solem from the teacher is enough to have the plant fleeing. Dahlia quickly scrambles away from it to the stone passageway that leads to the next room.

When the internet takes off and the computers aren’t dinosaurs, I’m never again watching tentacle porn. This was a disturbing experience.

Note: that’s another two points against Dumbledore. A first-year plant that can be defeated by a first-year spell.

Additional Note: invest in Apple. and Google. Amazon, Facebook. make a list of things to invest in Why haven’t I thought of this sooner! I’m going to be rich, rich, rich. Cheers for future knowledge!

Figure out how investing works. Ask Uncle Vernon.

The corridor echoed with their footsteps and the gentle drip of water falling from the ceiling. The nearer they got to the next obstacle, the clearer the soft rustling sound of the keys’ wings accompanied by a metallic clinking was. The floor sloped downwards and the temperature was gradually getting colder. The place looked to be even further underground than the dungeons and she wondered if the rooms had been there before or if Dumbledore had them built especially for this. She didn’t see a use for them otherwise.

The sudden light of the brilliantly lit chamber is jarring after the darkness of the passageway and she has to blink to get rid of the spots in her eyes.

Quirrellmort strides toward the heavy, wooden door on the opposite side while she remains hovering by the entrance. She wanted to be as far away from him as possible at all times if she could help it.

His wandless unlocking trick doesn’t work on this lock and he casts several more spells, his furious scowl becoming more pronounced with each failure.

She shifts nervously as the minutes’ tick by, wondering if there was any way she could stall for time. Regrettably, she doesn’t think of anything by the time Quirrellmort turns away from the door and glares up at the keys.

“Catch it.” He orders her.

By then, she feels comfortable enough to presume he wasn’t going to kill her just yet, so she throws him an angry glance. “I’m not a Seeker.”

I miscalculated.

“Crucio!”

She’d felt worse pain when she had died, but this was a pretty damn close second. Collapsing to writhe on the wet stone ground like a worm, she screams as she’s assaulted by white-hot knives all over her body. It barely lasts half a minute but when Quirrellmort ends the spell and orders her to catch the key again, she doesn’t dare argue more.

Stumbling to her feet in silence, Dahlia unsteadily approaches the hovering broomsticks near the entrance of the chamber and climbs on the one that looked the safest. The quality of the school brooms was shit. They were safety hazards. It’s a wonder no one had been killed using them yet.

Wiping the tears off her face with a sleeve, she peers up at the winged keys to spot the big rusty one that matched the lock on the door. Spying its bright blue wings among a flock of pink, silver, yellow, and every other color of the rainbow, she kicks off the ground.

When on a broom, what she was good at was speed, sharp turns, and nearly vertical dives. Perfect for a racer. She spent many weekends participating in student-organized races on the Quidditch pitch and while she didn’t always win, she was in the top five of the regulars. But those skills weren’t helping her in her current situation. What she needed was Harry’s knack for noticing and catching small objects in the air.

Hold up. Dahlia pauses near the tall ceiling pretending to search for the key after losing it for the third time. It might actually be a good thing she didn’t have Harry’s knack. She had wanted to stall Quirrellmort. This was the perfect chance even if she risked being crucioed again each time the key slipped through her fingers.

Halfheartedly chasing after the key, she muses on how she would have built the trap if she ever had wanted to do it. Which she didn’t. It was stupid. Fidelius on a desk drawer would have been so much more secure.

First thing first, she would have never left the correct key in the room and would have carried it with her instead. Second, the other keys she would have left behind as decoys. Third, they would have all looked exactly the same except for very minor details to confuse the thief.

That’s how it should have been. The way it currently was, it was like Dumbledore wanted it to be beatable. Oh, wait… she forgot. He did.

I couldn’t stall for time indefinitely. When Quirrellmort looked impatient enough to curse me again, I made a show of finally catching it and we moved on into McGonagall’s room.

I was mainly hoping that the others had noticed I was missing by then and had notified the teachers. I was also hoping the teachers have noticed Quirrell was also missing. Professor Snape’s smart and he already suspected him. He should have been able to piece it from there.

Light floods the previously dark chamber and they are treated to the sight of an enormous chessboard, the white featureless chessmen facing them. It was quite creepy.

“I don’t play chess. Absolutely rubbish at it.” Dahlia instantly says and cowers when Quirrellmort raises his wand. “I swear! I have better luck playing the Chinese Go!”

She wasn’t lying. Chess was a favorite in the Slytherin Common Room and she had been banned from ever touching the boards she was so bad at it.  

“Useless.” The man sneers. “Take the place of a pawn.”

Thanks a lot, she sneers back internally, moving to the king’s side’s outermost square. Like she wasn’t already aware that’s what both Dumbledore and Voldemort thought of her as.

Obviously, Quirrellmort himself takes the place of the black king. She hadn’t been expecting anything else.

A white pawn shifts into a new square and the game begins.

Whether Quirrellmort was a good player, she couldn’t say. She just moved according to his orders and hoped she wouldn’t be beaten over the head with a stone fist.

The game ends almost half an hour later with her still in one piece and just a move away from promotion. As the white king throws his crown at Quirrellmort’s feet, she spitefully takes a step forward.

I may play the pawn now, but I won’t always. One day, I will be strong. So strong, no one will control me. Anyone who tries will be crushed under my boot like the insects they are. And that’s a promise. I’m not in Slytherin just because I’m a vengeful bitch, morons~

Note: strikeout Ministry flunky as potential career.

The troll’s chamber smelled so disgusting she had to clasp a hand over her nose. Quirrellmort, on the other hand, looked completely unaffected.

The thing grunts and slowly shuffles its nearly fifteen feet tall mass of lumpy fat in their direction. Its skin was a dull, granite grey, and head bald with long ears. Its stubby feet had horn things and its arms were so long that its wooden club – mistaken for a small tree trunk at first glance – dragged on the ground.

Her brother was even more of an idiot than she had thought. Personally, Dahlia would have run in the other direction if she had ever accidentally come across a mountain troll and screw anyone but her family and closest friends. Under no circumstance is she risking her life for a virtual stranger.

“Has your brother told you how he beat my troll on Halloween?” Quirrellmort asks conversationally.

“He stuck his wand up its nose.” Dahlia unthinkingly answers, distracted by the beast, and quickly corrects herself before the man holding her hostage could react and hurt her again. “I mean, Weasley levitated its club over its head and dropped it.”

“How elegant.” Quirrellmort sneers. He really was putting on air like he was some nobleman, wasn’t he? Seems being his Lord’s meatsuit gave him a big head.

…

Hah!

“Well?” Quirrellmort prompts irritably.

“What?” She looks up at him incomprehensibly.

Quirrellmort sighs as if she was as dim as Crabble or Goyle and he had to repeat the simple instructions for the fifth time in a row. “Distract it.”

Her head swivels back to the troll, eyes wide. How precisely was she supposed to do that without a wand?

With no other option, she takes off running with a loud yell. Tiny-brained as it was, the troll follows her without much prompting.

Quirrellmort amuses himself by watching her jump around, barely avoiding the swinging club for a good long while. When he finally deigns to help by dropping the blasted stick on its head – because why change something that works – and the troll drops to the floor in an unconscious heap with a loud thump, she’s a panting, disheveled mess.

Professor Snape’s room provided me with an opportunity to waste even more time. We stayed there long enough for me to memorize the poem. See:

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,

Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,

One among us seven will let you move ahead,

Another will transport the drinker back instead,

Two among our number hold only nettle wine,

Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.

Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore,

To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:

First, however slyly the poison tries to hide

You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side;

Second, different are those who stand at either end,

But if you would move onwards, neither is your friend;

Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,

Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;

Fourth, the second left and the second on the right

Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

And all I had to do is suggest that it could be a lie and that either all the potions were poison – which is what a smart Slytherin would have done (for my part, I’d have filed the bottles with Draughts of Living Dead if I had been capable of brewing it) – or the poem was misleading and the correct potions that would allow us to pass through the fiery doorways weren’t placed where it said they would be. Quirrellmort had to examine and test every single bottle to make certain we weren’t going to accidentally kill ourselves because we foolishly believed a Slytherin.

Note: Professor Snape is a surprisingly good poet. Did he ever write some about Lil – Eugh, no. Horrible mental image. He’s not the type.  

Next up, the Mirror room.

Dumbledore was right. I could have gone my whole life without looking into it and be glad for it.

It was magnificent. Even propped up against the wall, it was almost as high as the ceiling and the shoulder-width of three American football players wide, with an ornate golden frame and two clawed animal feet. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi was written on the top in elaborate calligraphy.

“I show not your face, but your heart’s desire.” Dahlia translates in a reverend murmur.

She wanted to look into it. What was her heart’s desire? To see her old family again? To not have been born a Potter? The need to know was eating her up from the inside.

Quirrellmort strides up to the Mirror proudly and pauses when he realizes he had no idea where the Stone was or how to get it. He frowns at his reflection. 

“Potter, come here.” He orders. “What do you see?”

She slides up to him nervously, and after closing her eyes for a short second in preparation, resolutely meets the equally green gaze of her reflection.

It was still Dahlia Carina Potter, waving her wand and conjuring silver butterflies. At her feet sat Softpaws, her much-beloved Siamese cat from Godric’s Hollow. Behind her stood James and Lily Potter, older than the last time she saw them, their hands on her shoulders and smiling gently. Sirius had one arm around her father’s shoulders and the other around Remus. On her mother’s side, collapsed sloppily on the ground, were Uncles Gid and Fab, mouths open in soundless laughter. They were being angrily lectured by Professor Snape whose sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He didn’t have a Dark Mark. Harry was also there, hovering above it all on a broom, his hair windswept and forehead smooth and scarless.

I’m not like Harry. It’s not family that I want, but this world without Voldemort.

I understand now. As much as I miss my old life, I love magic too much to give it up. If I were offered the chance, I don’t think I’d ever want to go back. Not if it meant leaving my wand behind.

“Well?” Quirrellmort jerks her out of her wishful staring. “Tell me what you see.”

“What my life would be like if the Dark Lord hadn’t existed.” She replies honestly. Why lie? There was no point in it.

Quirrellmort curses and shoves her harshly aside. He begins casting spells on the Mirror.

Stumbling away, Dahlia sits down beside the flaming doorway. The room was cold and the enchanted fire had warmed the stones around it to a pleasant temperature. It was so lovely, she actually almost nodded off before Professor Snape comes stomping in dramatically.

Quirrellmort reacts quickly. Some sort of spell has her dragged through the air to him and he painfully grabs her by the hair. She’s spun around so that her body covered his, and the tip of his wand rose to press against the side of her throat. “I knew you’d be useful.” The man hisses into her ear and raises his voice to address Professor Snape. “Try anything and the girl’s dead.”

She swallows harshly, wildly raking her mind for a way to get out of her current situation.

“You won’t win against me.” Professor Snape warns softly, his own wand raised threateningly. He takes a step closer. And then another. And another.

“Severus –” Dahlia stamps her heel hard on Quirrellmort’s toes and nails him with the back of her fist in his privates. He howls, involuntarily jerking his hand away from her throat from the pain and she takes the opportunity to slide out of his hold.

Wizards never expected muggle techniques. She’d learned that way back in her first year when people didn’t like her much. And it wasn’t like she was some Shaolin monk kungfu martial artist. She’d once had a week of self-defense lessons in her high school Phys Ed class and had taken a couple years of karate lessons because she despised traditional fitness gyms but she had to stay active and in shape somehow.

“Potter!” Professor Snape calls and tosses her a pale stick.

“Protego!” Quirrellmort’s curse splatters harmlessly against her hastily raised shield and she dives into the space between the back of the Mirror and the wall, wand pressed to her chest to avoid the spellfire of the adult’s duel. Panting, she leans out slightly to observe and to wait for a good moment to run over to the side of the room with the exit. The ice flowing through her body after drinking the Fire-Protection potion has yet to abate and it should be still possible for her to escape through the flames while Quirrellmort was distracted.  

There is only one good chance. Which she squanders by being too busy gaping at the horror that had been revealed to her. The movies had done it no justice to the awfulness of the sight of two faces on one head.

That’s right, you heard her. Quirrell’s turban unravels in the middle of the fight.

It might have been a stray spell, it may have been already loose and Quirrell’s moving around had made it worse. Whatever the case, there was a sudden stillness in the room as the purple fabric falls to the ground, uncovering its secret.  

Dahlia had, of course, know what was underneath, but she had never expected to actually see it.

“Severus…” Voldemort’s face hisses and the man chokes in disbelief on his next spell as he meets the Dark Lord’s eyes in the Mirror. From her hiding spot, she could see it in all its glory; chalk white, unnatural red eyes, slits for nostrils. The abnormal bone structure that made it look like two heads had been fused together.

Gone was the handsome face she had glimpsed on Halloween night.

Dark Arts didn’t affect the caster’s appearance. If it did, there would have been either a whole lot more disfigured people walking around or much less Dark wizards. She had read cursed scars were hard to hide long-term with potions and charms, and the appearance change couldn’t be all that different. She theorized Voldemort’s deteriorated looks were a consequence of splitting his soul into so many increasingly smaller parts. With his original body lost, his appearance could now only be the reflection of the state of his soul. Which was ugly and torn to shreds.

“My Lord –”

Dumbledore bursts into the room.

She can see the exact moment Professor Snape makes his decision between his Masters. His mouth curls into a snarl, his eyes harden, and he flings what she thought to be a Bone-Breaking Curse at Quirrell. It misses and hits the Mirror.

The priceless artifact hiding an even more priceless artifact shatters into a thousand and one pieces.

“NO!” Voldermort shrieks, high-pitched. Dumbledore looks with dismay at the glittering shards. “YOU FOOL! MY STONE!”

“Petrificus Totalus.” Dahlia’s lips barely move and the whisper is so quiet even she had difficulty hearing it. No one notices, distracted by the glass remains as they were.

The curse hits Quirrell’s back, and his arms and legs snap together. He falls to the ground, stiff as a board, and Voldemort hits the ground face first.

She stifles a hysterical snort.

“Excellent job, Miss Potter.” Professor Snape says as she climbs out from behind the empty frame of the Mirror.

“Miss Potter?” Dumbledore looks even more startled. Probably had been expecting Harry.

“Is this really the Dark Lord?” She asks because it would have been suspicious if she didn’t.

“How did you know?” Professor Snape exclaims.

Ah, it wasn’t obvious?

Abort! Abort!
She blinks up innocently at her teacher. “You called him Lord.” It wasn’t exactly hush-hush that he was a former Death Eater in the Pit.

Thankfully, they appear convinced and for once, things go her way because from Quirrell’s prone body rises up black mist, distracting them from questioning her further.

With a banshee-like wail, Voldemort’s wraith makes its escape.

I just had to interrupt Quirrellmort mid heist, huh? What’s next? Battling the Basilisk? Running from werewolves and facing Dementors? Forget it. Not gonna happen. Nu-uh.

Nest year and the ones following I’m going to be nothing more than a background character.

Chapter Text

“But you don’t understand,” Ron’s yelling was audible even through the thick wooden door, almost drowning out the sweet playing of the harp conjured earlier in the evening. “Snape’s going to steal the Stone!”

“Mr. Weasley!” Professor McGonagall sounded absolutely scandalized by the accusation. “I can assure you, Professor Snape would never!”

Dahlia exhales heavily through her nose and steps out into the third floor’s corridor. “It was Quirrell.”

“What?” The bewildered faces of the Golden Trio turn towards her in unison.

“Quirrell was trying to steal the Stone.” She repeats.

“But,” Poor Harry looked lost. “Snape tried to kill me.”

“What’s this about?” She abruptly straightens from her tired slump. Hadn’t she prevented this when she had forbidden Harry from playing on the Quidditch team?

“Foolish boy, I was saving you.” Professor Snape sweeps by, Quirrell’s wrapped in a conjured sheet body bobbling in the air behind him. After Voldemort had theatrically fled, the former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had been unable to handle the strain of having been possessed for so long. He expired minutes after. It had been all very distressing and she didn’t want to think about it. “Come along, my Potter. To the Hospital Wing with you.”

“Is that –” Professor McGonagall begins, but cuts herself off, eyes darting to the kids. “Bed. You’re going to bed right this second, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger. I’ll escort you to the Common Room.”

“But!” Harry protests.

“Go on, Harry.” Dumbledore encourages him kindly, shutting the door to Fluffy’s room behind him.

“We’ll talk later.” She hisses at her brother and hurries after Professor Snape as fast as her battered body allowed her to – along with an impressive collection of bruises from shards of stone chessmen, a common side-effect of the Cruciatus made her muscles occasionally twitch painfully. From what she could tell, the spell’s primary function was to attack and destroy the nerves in the body, which is why it was so excruciating. The Longbottoms were likely held under the spell for so long, their brains were eventually affected and that’s why they went mad.

Trailing up the stairs like an old lady with arthritis after Professor Snape who was kind enough to walk slowly for her even though if she mentioned it he would have angrily denied it, Dahlia musses on the plot and if it had deviated badly enough for her to do damage control.

The Philosopher’s Stone wasn’t… Well, it wasn’t safe exactly, but it wasn’t in Voldemort’s hands. In canon, it was destroyed too, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. The Mirror hadn’t appeared again after the first book, another thing whose destruction doesn’t matter in the long term… Ron didn’t get his moment. He didn’t sacrifice himself for his friends during the chess game. Was that going to cause problems? No, she didn’t think so. It was important for his character development, but he’d have plenty of other opportunities in the future.

On the bright side, Harry didn’t kill someone with his bare hands. He might not have realized that’s what he was doing – at least, the books didn’t make it seem like he did – but the experience would have still mentally scared him. She’s glad he avoided that.

“Oh, Merlin! Who is this?”

“Quirrell.” Professor Snape divulges to the shocked Madam Pomfrey. She was wearing a frilly, pink nightgown and her hair was in a disarray. Evidently, she had just been woken up by the wards when they had come into the Hospital Wing. Dahlia hadn’t noticed how late it had gotten. “He’s dead. Kidnapped one of mine and attempted to steal the Stone.”

“Well,” The woman huffs, collecting herself. “put him on a bed, we’ll deal with him later. Do draw the curtains around him, will you? We don’t want to scare the students.” She turns towards Dahlia. “Now, young lady, why don’t you sit down right here? Have you been hit with a spell? That tremble of yours doesn’t look like simple shock.”

“Cruciatus.” She says, sitting down on the nearest bed with a groan of relief.

“What?!” Professor Snape snarls, whipping around from Quirrell’s corpse. In two strides he was at her side and casting some sort of diagnostic spell on her. “He did.” He confirms to Madam Pomfrey who clasps a hand to her mouth in horror. “A minute at most.”

“And thank Circe for that!” The matron exclaims. “Any longer and he would have caused irreparable damage!” With a whip of her wand, a set of pajamas fly out from a cupboard and land at the foot of her bed. “Change dearie, I’m afraid you aren’t leaving here for a few days.”

Madam Pomfrey bustles off to her office and there is a sudden awkward silence in the room.

“Sir, how did you know where to find me?” She finally asks.

Professor Snape looks down at her thoughtfully. “Mrs. Norris found your wand.”

And being incredibly intelligent for cat, brought it back to her master in hopes of getting whoever trespassed on the forbidden floor in trouble, she filled in. Filch, in turn, had brought it to the teachers and they must have realized something was wrong from there.

“Thank you for saving me.” She says and was about to add that she hoped it wouldn’t cause him difficulties proving his loyalty to Voldemort later, but rethinks it. She wasn’t supposed to know he was a spy.

But boy did she put him in a tough spot. The only way he could explain himself to the Dark Lord when he truly returns was by saying he had meant to miss and that he’s been unwilling to blow his cover as a spy – as Voldemort’s in Dumbledore’s camp – which is why he had attempted to curse him.

“Get some sleep, Miss Potter.” Professor Snape tells her gruffly and walks out of the Hospital Wing.

She covers her snort of amusement with a cough. Is this what tsundere were like in real life?

Madam Pomfrey returns with various potions floating after her, including a Calming Draught – to help you sleep, Miss Potter. She hoped it wasn’t addictive. She was drinking it distressingly often those days.

Within half an hour, she was under soft covers and drifting off to blessedly dream free sleep.

She is not all too pleased to wake up to Dumbledore sitting by her bedside. His lime green robes were an eyesore this early in the morning. Or any other time, really. The man’s fashion sense was atrocious. A crime against humanity.

“Headmaster.” She greets blandly.

“Miss Potter.” He smiles a grandfatherly smile at her, and she represses the urge to grimace back. “How are you on this fine morning?”

“Better than last night.” She says dryly and sits up, sheets pooling in her lap. The twitching seemed to have stopped and now all she felt the kind of tenderness one felt after an intense workout. “Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what are you going to do about the Dar – You-Know-Who?”

“The fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself, Miss Potter.” He tells her wisely. Didn’t he say something similar to Harry in the books? “Calling him Voldemort reminds us he is a man, and men can be defeated.”

She rolls her eyes, stifling a yawn. “Well, Voldemort isn’t his true name either is it? What kind of parents would call him that? And anyway, I heard about the taboo during the war. Nothing prevents him from doing the same thing again. Better get in the habit before I slip up when he does.” Also, it would have painted a target on her in the Pit. She needed to show some sliver of respect towards the Dark Lord or she’d have been lynched. Even if he did kill her parents.

“That’s an interesting way of thinking, Miss Potter,” Dumbledore says.

She blinks, confused. “Not really. I think it’s only sensible.”

The Headmaster watched her thoughtfully. “You are certain he will return in truth.”

“He’s still alive and on the loose.” She points out mildly “Eventually, he will find another method of getting back his body. This time he failed, next time he might not.”

“Hmm. Do you remember what we talked about last, Miss Potter?”

“No?” She answers slowly, thrown by the sudden change in subject. “Something about Harry? It’s been a long time.” Did he really expect a traumatized three-year-old to recall that conversation?

“Your brother must remain with your aunt and uncle,” Dumbledore tells her. “He will be safest at their house during the summer break.” Translation: Don’t let him accept invitations to stay at a friend’s house.

There’s a lot she had to say about that, but she’s not going to argue with a man who wields the Death Stick and who is an accomplished Legilimens. If he wanted her to do something, he’ll make her do it regardless of her own wishes. She’ll just have to do her best to keep Harry out of the house. Maybe have him visit Hermione? Without Ron’s lazy influence, the girl might succeed in bullying him into studying properly and that’s only a good thing. With any luck, his go-to spell won’t be an Expelliarmus of all spells in this life. It only worked so often for him, because nobody expected it. It wouldn’t take his enemies long to adjust if that was the only spell he used when fighting and it was easily countered.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She promises.

Dumbledore stands. “Very well, I must be going now, Miss Potter. I wish you a good summer.”

“Thank you, sir. You too.” Dahlia scowls at the man’s retreating back. He hadn’t answered her question about what he was planning on doing about Voldemort now that he knew the Dark Lord was back for sure.

And neither did she see much of his favorite eccentric grandfather persona. She shouldn’t have asked about the Dark Lord straight away. That had been a mistake. Did Dumbledore already suspect there was something off about her?

Ugh, her head hurt. Why did everything had to be so bloody complicated?

“Here you are.” Madam Pomfrey comes bustling in with a tray of food. “Your breakfast. I understand if you don’t have much of an appetite, Miss Potter – it is a side effect of the potion regime I have you on – but I want you to try and eat half of this, alright?”

Dahlia stares despondently at the tray which was laden with enough food to keep her feed for the next two days.  “That’s way too much, Madam Pomfrey!” She protests.

“Half.” The elderly woman says, non-compromising and clearly intending to stay hovering above her until Dahlia ate a satisfactory amount.

Groaning, she picks up her fork, already feeling ill with the thought of stuffing herself with that much food.

“Professor Dumbledore told us what happened,” Harry tells her, sitting down on the recently vacated by Dumbledore chair.

Oh? She raises an eyebrow, moving her food tray – she’d managed a quarter before Pomfrey took pity on her and left – to the bedside table and dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. What exactly did the meddling old man know?

“And what were you doing there?” She asks. “I was there because I got kidnapped, but you had absolutely no reason for being on the forbidden third floor after curfew.”

Harry flushes. “We – I mean me and Ron and Hermione – had it all figured out about the Philosopher’s Stone. We thought Snape was going to steal it.”

“And you were going to stop him by yourselves?” She laughs lightly and it came out more condescending-sounding than she would have liked. “Harry, Professor Snape fought in the last war. He’s very strong. The three of you together wouldn’t have lasted a minute against him.”

Harry flushes darker. “McGonagall didn’t believe us. And Dumbledore was gone.”

That was indeed a problem. How could she prevent her brother from rushing headfirst into danger when the adults who should be doing it instead didn’t listen to his warnings? “Come to me next time. If there is a next time.” Which there will be. “I’ll be able to convince them.” Mainly by going to Professor Snape. He’ll listen to her. He knows she wasn’t fucking around with her brother’s safety and wouldn’t invent say, a Basilisk living in a supposedly fictional Chamber of Secrets for shits and giggles.

“Okay,” Harry says quietly.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, considering her brother contemplatively. “What did you mean when you said Professor Snape tried to kill you?”

“I was practicing with the Quidditch team for the next year,” Harry explains. “and I lost control of my broom. Ron says he and Hermione saw Snape near the Pitch staring at me and mumbling something when it happened.”

“How did you get down?” She asks evenly. At least, she thinks it was evenly.

“Oliver Wood says Madam Hooch put all kinds of enchantments on the school brooms for safety after Neville fell. They don’t go beyond a certain high anymore, so I was able to jump down safely.”

She nods distractedly. Was this the timeline attempting to go back to how it would have gone without her interference or was this just a coincidence? If she truly attempts to change things, what would happen? For example, if she saves someone who was meant to die, will they live long? Will somebody else who was supposed to live die in their place?

“Why didn’t you tell me about magic?”

She jerks in surprise, having forgotten Harry was still there. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about magic?” He repeats.

They were doing this now? She isn’t prepared mentally!

“I had no idea how to find Diagon Alley or how to contact a wizard.” She anxiously twists the sheets in her hands. “It would have changed absolutely nothing for the better. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon could have been even meaner to you if you knew. And,” She licks her lips. “knowing about magic, that the time your teacher’s hair turned blue was your fault or when you shrunk that hideous sweater of Dudley’s, you’d have attempted to recreate it. There would have been more instances of accidental magic and those are tracked in the Ministry. If a You-Know-Who follower got their hands on the records, if they remembered Mom had a muggle sister and they knew both who she married and where she lived – it was a favorite tactic of theirs; to target the families of muggle-borns, it’s how our grandparents died – and realized she had two magically strong kids living with her… Guessing it was us wouldn’t be hard.”

They had a whole Department at the Ministry for that. From what Kyle explained to her, a child’s accidental magic resonated differently than the one channeled by magically mature adults which happened at the age of seventeen – hence the coming of age. It was possible to track it using specialized runic equipment and whenever there was an outburst, the Ministry was notified and they could send out Obliviators to clean up the mess when it happened in muggle territory. As magical children, they were left untouched along with their families, but Mrs. Dodds certainly did not remember the time Dahlia had turned her ears into donkey ones. Without this Department, the secret of magic wouldn’t stay a secret for long.

Although, with the era of the internet and social media fast approaching, they will have to greatly restructure themselves if they wanted to continue remaining unnoticed. Hiring tech-savvy muggle-borns would be a good first step.

Harry didn’t look convinced. “And after? After you started Hogwarts?”

“Still too dangerous.” She lies firmly. “It was for your own good, Harry. Dumbledore himself asked me not to tell you.”

It never made sense to her that Dumbledore had left Harry unaware of his magic. Even if Voldemort was gone, Death Eaters remained at large. There got to be one or two just chomping at the bit to have revenge for their Lord’s death with a willingness to throw everything away to achieve it. Harry entered the Wizarding world absolutely unprepared. With the Order of the Phoenix currently dissolved, she didn’t think he had guards hiding nearby during his first trip to Diagon Alley. Had one of the Death Eaters acted on their wishes, he’d be dead in seconds.

If it had been up to her, Harry would have been trained from childhood. Sure, she understood the need for him to have a normal childhood or a semblance of it – part of the reason why she didn’t tell him about Dumbledore’s machinations once she was able to – but some self-defense skills against magic users wouldn’t hurt. Just enough to give him a fighting chance to run for safety.

…

Hold up. Wizards can teleport. They have several means of teleportation. Why the fuck wasn’t Harry given an emergency Portkey? Are wizards fucking idiots?

She exhales forcefully. “Do you have plans for this summer?”

Reminder to self: bug Kyle into getting her a book on Portkeys. She’ll fucking make one herself since no one else will. It’ll have to be something so commonplace people wouldn’t pay attention to it. Something he could carry with himself everywhere without running the risk of accidentally losing it. A cross necklace! Or a saint’s depiction. Genius. It wouldn’t be considered too girly, and he wouldn’t be teased by other boys for wearing it. She thinks. Boys can be stupid.

“Why?” He asks suspiciously.

But where would it send her brother to when activated?

“Because I want to spend time with you?” She says, mouth pursing at his tone.

Duh, just outside Hogwarts’ wards, of course. Dumbledore wouldn’t let her get in trouble for creating an illegal Portkey and saving his precious Boy-Who-Lived, right? He’ll cover for her.

“But you don’t like me,” Harry claims, voice small. He appeared smaller in his chair, shoulders hunched and head lowered.

She shifts uncomfortably in bed. “I… Yes, I resented you. I blamed you for getting our parents killed and making me a target for Death Eaters. I don’t understand you. You’re rash and reckless and poke your nose into things that are none of your business. Trouble follows you everywhere and I don’t like trouble. But despite all that, I still love you.” She smiles down at her lap, a bit wretchedly. “You don’t have to like a person to love them, Harry. And I want to do better. I really do. I want us to have a good relationship. So,” She takes a deep breath. “can you forgive me? Can you give me another chance for us to be a family?”

Fuck Dumbledore and his plots, she had been already planning on spending the summer with Harry. She wasn’t lying; she did genuinely want to rebuild their relationship.

There is a fragile light of hope shining in Harry’s eyes and he nods silently. She itches to tell him about Dumbledore, to urge him not to trust the old man, but she can’t. At this age, he’ll only react negatively to the talk. Harry had already problems trusting people. Telling him Dumbledore was playing games, could break him completely. He would never trust another adult again. He’ll never have another close friend and he might ruin his relationship with Ron and Hermione. He’ll turn into a reclusive hermit after school. Okay, she’s exaggerating, but you get the idea.

Mental issues could last a lifetime and she was trying to get Harry through the war as healthy as possible. Some things were unavoidable, but she could mitigate the damage. She’ll tell him when he’s ready to handle it. Meaning, when he has finished developing his critical thinking. And probably with a mature Hermione to help her calm him down and think it through.

There a chime from a clock on the wall, and Madam Pomfrey hurries out of her office with more potions.

“We’ll talk during the holidays if there you have more questions.” She tells her brother as he leaves.

Her next visitors, after a long argument with Madam Pomfrey where she proved she wasn’t tired and recovering well, were the Notts and James.

Ava throws herself into her arms with a sharp cry the moment the strict matron had gone back to her office. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Dah!”

She looks up at Kyle, confusion clear on her face.

“She blames herself for not realizing you were missing earlier.” The second blond explains. “We went looking for you only nearing curfew time.”

“It’s not your fault.” She says gently to the sobbing girl. “Hogwarts is supposed to be safe. There was no way you could have known I was in danger.”

“We were with Professor Snape explaining about your disappearance – that was past curfew when no one had seen you since the last exam and you had yet to come back to the Pit – when Filch came with your wand.” James sits down on the mattress by her feet. “We were worried. Dahlia, what happened? We weren’t told anything other than that you were recovering in the Hospital Wing.”

She pats Ava’s hair comfortingly. “The Headmaster was hiding the Philosopher’s Stone on the third-floor corridor.” She says glibly.

“I’m sorry?” Kyle manages after a moment of shocked silence. “The what?”

“The Philosopher’s Stone.” She repeats brightly. “You know, created by Nicolas Flamel? Transforms any metal into pure gold and creates the Elixir of Life?”

“We know what it is.” James grinds out between clenched teeth. “Why was Dumbledore hiding it in Hogwarts?”

She shrugs. “No idea. I think somebody tried to steal it this summer from the Gringott’s bank vault it was kept in and Flamel asked his good friend and student Albus Dumbledore to help out? Quirrell wasn’t feeling very chatty when he kidnapped me to use as a hostage in case his own attempt to steal it went wrong.”

“How was the Stone protected?” Kyle asks, rubbing his forehead with a grimace.

“A series of chambers on the third floor. The first one had a full-grown Cerberus, the next, a Devil’s Snare, the third, flying keys, brooms and a lock unlockable only with one of the aforementioned keys, then one with a giant chess set you needed to win against to get through, one with a mountain troll in it, the sixth had doorways protected by magical fire and the potions needed to pass through the flames unharmed standing hidden among several other bottles with clues provided in the form of a riddle and the Stone was hidden inside a magical mirror in the final chamber.” She cheerfully lists off. “And get this, turns out Quirrell was possessed by the Dark Lord’s wraith. The entire year. And no one noticed.”          

Kyle falls heavily into the chair. “That’s…”

“Mmh.”

“I can’t believe…”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Did Dumbledore want the Stone stolen?” Ava exclaims, pulling away from her.

“I think it was supposed to be a trap for the Dark Lord actually.” She muses aloud.

“Inside a school full of children?” James scoffs. “If that was true, he would be knowingly putting all of us in danger!”

“I’m surprised you aren’t surprised about the Dark Lord.” She notes.

Kyle waves it off absentmindedly. “There were always rumors of his survival among the loyalists.”

Her eyes narrow. “And are you? Loyalists?” She didn’t think they were but she had never thought about it either, having been so grateful to finally have friends she hadn’t been willing to look the horse in the mouth.

Ava’s mouth quirks up. “Would we be friends with you if we were?”

Her head tilts to the side as she considers the question. “You could be lulling me into a false sense of security and kill me when the time is right.”

Kyle smiles too. “Well, I suppose you can only trust us not to be.”

Yeah, she did, didn’t she? She had no way of knowing to who their allegiance belonged. James’ family worked with muggles, Ava didn’t seem like the type, but Kyle… he could go either way.

“What next?” James asks. “Are you going to raise another fuss like with the spiders?”

“Is there a point?” She asks in turn. “Quirrell is dead, the general populace won’t believe me about the Dark Lord and the Stone had been destroyed in the fighting. The Gryffindors had been playing with the obstacles the entire year and no one had been hurt that we know of, so they clearly couldn’t have been that dangerous.”

“And Dumbledore gets away with endangering his students yet again.” Kyle sighs.

“Yep.” She pops the p. “And something tells me won’t be the last time. Dumbledore’s too used to doing things the way he wants to stop now.”

“Grand Sorcerer, Supreme Mugwump, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Headmaster of Hogwarts, that’s too much power for a single man.” James declares angrily.

Especially for a man like Dumbledore, she silently agrees. Deep inside, he remained the same boy who was in love with Gellert Grindelwald and dreamed of ruling the world. He was just doing it from the shadows now, having learned from the mistakes of his former boyfriend.

For the greater good – that phrase and all that it entailed still ruled over him with an iron grip.

“You’re still here?!” Madam Pomfrey interrupts. “Visiting hours are over!”

The decorations of the end-of-year feast were predictably green and silver. She cared little for the House Cup since you didn’t really win anything other than bragging rights, but it did feel nice to lord their seventh victory in a row over the sulking, dead last Gryffindors.

This time around, Dumbledore isn’t able to save his favored House by awarding points for stupid things like for ‘the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years’ or for ‘the use of cool logic in the face of fire’ or for ‘pure nerve and outstanding courage’ or whatever else he could have thought up. The Slytherins won fair and square and no amount of favoritism could take that away from them.

That scene had always annoyed her. If Dumbledore had wanted Gryffindor to win so much, why hadn’t he awarded the points earlier in private? Doing it the way he did had been petty and meanspirited.

Imagine you are a seventh-year Slytherin student who is having your last feast at Hogwarts. You have worked your ass off all year doing everything possible to earn all the points you can despite the bias most of the teachers have against your House. At the end of the year that effort pays off. The Slytherins won the Cup – only for that feeling of victory and accomplishment to be snatched away by Dumbledore giving points he had days to give out for very vague reasons to four kids who did… something. You don’t actually know what they did either. You’ve heard they saved the school, but they’re firsties, so the rumors were probably way overblown. It got to hurt, being humiliated like that in front of the entire school by your own Headmaster. Nice goodbye to your home of seven years, isn’t it?

She’d have much fewer problems with that scene if Dumbledore hadn’t made such a spectacle out of it and given the points in the days between when Harry had been in the Hospital Wing.

Their exam results come out and she had unsurprisingly done well on all of them. Not top of the year well – the first five spots were usually Ravenclaws – but well. Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology were her lowest marks and they were both in the Exceeding Expectations range percentage-wise.

Soon enough, she was packing everything up into her trunk and taking a Thestral carriage down to the train station.  

The ride back to London is peaceful. She informs James she was intending on spending the summer with her family and that her Abraxan riding lessons will have to be postponed till another time. The Slytherin firsties pop in for a while to wrangle out of her one last heavily edited and slightly exaggerated recounting of her unwanted adventure – she’s still miffed Dumbledore hadn’t awarded her points for not only surviving but also taking down a madman. Zabini stops by to invite her to a Litha celebration which she has to decline. She never gets to celebrate this particular Sabbat since it usually fell on the end of the term day.

About fifteen minutes before they arrive at King’s Cross, she sends the boys out of their compartment to begin changing out of her uniform. Like always, Ava’s nose wrinkles in distaste when she sees what she pulled out of her trunk and that was part of the reason she didn’t immediately dress muggle when she woke up in the morning. With her Housemates coming by to chat one last time before separating for the summer, Dahlia didn’t want to remind them more than necessary of where she lived during the break.

She had two distinct wardrobes. The one she wore at Hogwarts or at any other magical location consisted of the usual school uniform and mainly of a pairing between long and loose skirts with blouses, many of which had a minimal amount of ruffles. Her shoes were heeled Mary Janes and she sneakily wore stockings with garters because she absolutely couldn’t stand the more socially accepted tights. Overtop everything went robes which were typically the most elaborate of the garments. And honestly? She didn’t really mind. In fact, she loved it. She’d even call wizarding pureblood fashion something of a weird mix of Victorian gothic without the goth part, steampunk without the steampunk part aesthetic with something uniquely wizarding so she literally got to cosplay every day and no one batted an eye. It was awesome. She couldn’t wait until she looked old enough for the more adult designs. Especially since – she had been very excited to find out – those ginormous hoopskirts and corsets were out-of-style.

Dahlia had spotted Narcissa once walking down Diagon Alley, and her dress just… Chef kiss. It had a mermaid fishtail ruffle asymmetrical skirt and the top was designed like one of those blouses with the ruffles at the neck and wrists. Her robes weren’t that far off from a tight coat that cinched at the waist with several horizontal rows of buttons and flared open at the bottom until the helms dragged slightly on the ground. As she walked, from her long skirt peaked out the pointed toes of heeled Victorian boots. In the ruffles around her neck, she wore a brooch, and large earrings dangled from her ears. Her small, cocked-to-the-side hat had veils at the back and flowers and feathers attached to the ribbon.

Lucius, walking beside his wife, had been no less striking. He had been wearing an equally ruffled at the wrists shirt which he had paired with a tucked-into-a-vest cravat. The piece of silk around his neck had also been secured by a brooch. Similar to corsets and hoopskirts, pantaloons had gone out of fashion a couple of decades earlier, so Malfoy had been wearing normal dress pants. His robes weren’t neatly buttoned up like Narcissa’s and his dress shoes were polished to a shine. His ever-present snake-headed walking stick had menacingly struck the cobblestone with his every step.

So yeah, she’s stating it again; she loved it. True, many preferred to go over the top with eye-searing bright colors (CoughDumbledorecough) and miles of fabric, but she had taste and went with a subtler style. Dark colors like green and crimson and blue and black and the occasional white for contrast were her primary picks. There wasn’t too much ruffle and lace and embroidery. She wasn’t dripping in expensive jewelry, like Avery. Still, she could see why muggle-born who weren’t familiar with terms like gothic and steampunk would consider wizard fashion weird and outdated and continue to stubbornly wear their jeans at school.

The wardrobe she wore during the summer entailed mainly of muggle fashion which meant lots of jeans and flannel shirts combined with plain Keds, though she had also splurged for a pair of Dr. Martens. Very grunge, and neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon were very happy with her choices, but she blended in with the rest of the teens her age so they didn’t complain much. It helped that even in her first life she much preferred Kurt Cobain over Justin Bieber. Had she been born a decade or two earlier, she’d been right there with the punks and the rockers. Hell, she still was. She’d blown a lot of her hard-earned money on a Walkman as a kid and she still brought it everywhere when she wasn’t at Hogwarts where she suffered from music deprivation. Fuck did she wish for a good hard rock song after ten months of listening to the same Celestina Warbeck album for the thousands time the Gryffindors played it on the wireless outside. And the Weird Sisters had nothing, nothing on their muggle counterparts. Her Housemates? She usually didn’t mind the operas and orchestras they softly played in the Pit since it was very soothing when studying, but it all blended together after a while with absolutely no originality. There was never anything new on.

They are among the last to get off the Hogwarts Express and as soon as they step foot on the platform, they are accosted by a woman. Malfoy blond and grey-eyed, her delicate features bared a remarkable resemblance to the ones of the Nott siblings.

“Kylian, Avalyn, there you are.” She snaps harshly. “Do hurry up, I have places to be.”

“Hello, Mrs. Nott.” Dahlia politely inclines her head and James bows slightly in the proper wizarding etiquette.

The woman looks taken aback. “What on earth are you wearing?!”

“It’s muggle fashion, mother,” Ava interjects. “I promise she wears proper clothes at school.”

“Well, I do hopes so. How unsightly.” Mrs. Nott sniffs haughtily.

“Girl!” Uncle Vernon’s impatient bellow is audible even through the gateway leading back to the Muggle world.

She winces and lowers her head again. “I apologize, my uncle is calling for me. I wish you all a good summer.”

After a hasty goodbye to her friends, she flounces off towards the barrier and her muggle relatives. One hopefully normal summer avoiding her unpleasant relatives coming up.

Chapter Text

Summer begins with her receiving a letter from France.

While still bedbound in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, she had written to the Flamels to apologize for the destruction of their Stone – mostly because it was the polite thing to do after pretty much indirectly killing them.

Yeeeah, she did not believe Dumbledore's crap about them suddenly being ready for their next 'great adventure' after evading death for the last several centuries.

Thanking the Flamels’ owl with a treat and letting it back out the window, Dahlia opens the envelope by breaking the wax seal – a cross draped with a snake, and a pair of detached wings framing a hovering crown – and unfolds the parchment. 

Dear Miss Potter, it read in a very old-fashioned script.

We were very pleased to hear from you, dear one. Your letter was much appreciated, though unnecessary – we do not blame you for the destruction of our Stone. 

When Albus came to us, we were aware we may never see it again and it was a risk we were willing to take. Over our numerous years, we have seen many Dark Lords rise and fall, and while Voldemort is far from the worst to ever walk on the earth, he remains an evil that must be purged by any means necessary. Including the destruction of what amounts to a pretty paperweight on most days, useless to everyone but us. For the Greater Good, as Albus likes to say.

Sincerely, 

Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel 

PS: Darling child, have you forgotten? We made the Stone once, nothing says we cannot do so again. 

PPS: Please don’t tell dear Albus, but it was a fake. We're playing a little prank on him, you see. 

Obviously, it was a fake, she laughs quietly. How clever to make Voldemort think the Stone had been moved while in reality keeping it in the same place.  

And they could make another one if they so needed. Somehow, she got into her head they would require a few thousand souls as an ingredient.

… She may have watched a little too much Fullmetal Alchemist in her first life.

No, wait, there was nothing in the letter that disapproved that. They really could need a few thousand souls for the Stone.

Dahlia stares at the high-quality parchment with a contemplative frown. Perhaps, it was a good thing it had been a fake. She was in no hurry to find out if Hiromu Arakawa had been right. Hadn’t the Flamels been born around the time of the Black Death? What if it had been created by them to collect all those souls?

Having survived COVID-19, she’d prefer not to be stuck in another pande – Ah, shit. She still had that to look forward to. Bloody time traveling.

At least by then, she’d be long gone from this shitty place. Aunt Petunia would have never allowed her or Harry to wander around disturbing her family and putting them at risk with their freaky magic germs if there was a lockdown and would have locked them up for months at a time. They’d have both gone utterly mad by the third week.

Letter dangling from her fingers, Dahlia leans back against the windowsill and surveys her – sorry, their room. Hers and Harry’s.

It was the second largest of the house, but it wasn’t big enough to comfortably fit two beds. Instead, they had a bunk bed with hard mattresses and creaky springs. They didn’t have pillows and she had graciously given Harry the top bunk – it had been one of her childhood dreams in her first life to have a bunk bed and to sleep on the top. The only other furniture in the room were dressers, a messy one for him, and a messier one for her as she had more stuff to store and it didn’t all fit into the drawers. There was a precarious stack of Walkman cassettes on it and a stack of muggle books – a haphazard mix of fictional and educational – on the floor by its side. There were papers filled with notes and pens strewed about. A backpack hung from the handles. What it didn’t have was badly folded clothes hanging out – like Harry’s – and dirty plates – thankfully, Harry wasn’t that much of a slob either. Aunt Petunia would have raised hell if she discovered even a hint of mold or bugs in her house and Dahlia wouldn’t have been far behind. Teenaged boy or not, she is not living in a stinky pigsty.

In the same corner her open school trunk was lying in, their two brooms leaned against the wall. Partly hidden by the dressers, they would be less likely to be noticed there by their relatives if they didn’t look too hard. Harry had pushed his own trunk under the bed when they had come back and had so far forgotten about it, though not for long if she had anything to do with it. She’d had to argue long and hard to be allowed to keep their magic belongings during the summer and Harry wasn’t going to let all her work go to waste.

Downstairs, a loud argument breaks out. Dahlia sighs, guessing what it was about, and turns to look reproachfully at Hedwig who was safely locked away in her cage on Harry’s dresser. “If you don’t quiet down, Uncle Vernon will have you stuffed and displayed in his office.” She tells her.

The snowy owl hoots in response, twisting her head upside down.

“Blasted bird!” Uncle Vernon yells before his voice lowers again to a slightly more muffled shout.

The Dursleys had not enjoyed being woken at all hours of the night by a bird that refused to shut up, and had made their displeasure known very clearly and very often.

Honestly? She understood how they felt. Being woken five times a night for a week straight was unpleasant and she was half of mind to invest in earplugs. How Harry managed to sleep throw all that racket was a truly mystifying thought. Maybe Ron really did snore as loudly as the twins had implied he did.

Noticing the time, Dahlia tosses the letter unto her dresser, and makes her way downstairs, gathering dark hair into a tight tail. She never cooked with it down – it was a dangerous hazard around gas stoves and rotating kitchenware like blenders and mixers. Plus, she’d be finding strands inside her food and that was both unsanitary and disgusting. And then there was potion class... Professor Snape had personally chopped off the hair of a Gryffindor girl in their first year after she had come with it unbound for the third time in a row despite his numerous warnings. After that, no girl ever dared forget her hair ties. 

Aunt Petunia was already in the kitchen when she arrives, furiously baking cookies for her lunch meeting with the other Privet Drive ladies.  

“Good morning, Aunt Petunia.”

Beginning her preparations for their breakfast by heating a pan and pulling out ingredients from the fridge, Dahlia dares to ask a question. “May I borrow the phonebook and the telephone later today, Aunt Petunia?”

The horse-faced woman looks up suspiciously from her mixing bowl. “What do you need it for?”

“One of Harry’s friends is muggle-born.” She answers serenely, cracking eggs. “Her parents are dentists. Very respectable. I was hoping he could visit. Hermione is said to have been the top student of their year, she could help him with the summer assignments.”

“And who will drive him there?” Aunt Petunia harrumphs into her sticky dough. “Vernon doesn’t have time for such nonsense.”

“We’ll take the Tube. I’ll pay for the fare with my own savings.” She cajoles while dropping bacon into the sizzling oil.

Aunt Petunia finally deigns to look up at her and Dahlia stops whatever she was doing to stare back steadily. “Nancy needs a babysitter this Sunday.”

Success. “Mrs. Taylor from number 18? With the three boys? I’ll be happy too.”

“Is it ready yet?” Dudley stomps into the kitchen impatiently.

Dahlia turns back to her pan. “Just a moment, Duddy.”

After a rather tense breakfast, when she leaves the house, she takes Harry with her to keep him out of trouble and away from their relatives. And she did promise to spend time with him even if it meant bringing him with her when she was working.

That day, she was helping out the elderly couple of number 14 by picking up their groceries, cleaning their house, and weeding their garden. Then, in the evening, she was supposed to stop by number 9 and tutor their daughter for a couple of hours. An easy day where Harry’s presence won’t distract her.

Dahlia had been doing similar odd jobs in the neighborhood for years. She’d begun because she wanted a little pocket money since the Dursleys certainly didn’t give her an allowance, realized it was a good method to maintain a respectable reputation, and continued because it made her life infinitely easier even after she had access to the Potter Gringott’s vault. With people believing she was a reforming naughty child – according to Aunt Petunia’s old rumors, the first few years after she and Harry came to live with them had been a nonstop war, they had been that badly behaved – their attitudes towards her became much nicer after they saw her hard at work in one garden or another. It reflected well on the Dursleys too – their success into turning such a horrible little girl into the current sweetheart – so it marginally softened Aunt Petunia who enjoyed being admired which is why she allowed her to contact the Grangers. Book Petunia would have never. 

“It really is an honor –” The sultry female voice gives her pause, and she slowly puts down the jar of preserves she was looking at back on the shelf, cocking her head to hear better.

“I’m sorry, I don’t –”

“– simply must thank you, Harry –”

She’s heard enough.

“May I help you?” She asks icily, rounding the corner to step into the next aisle and giving the woman’s exposed breasts a derisive look. They were almost falling out of her shirt, she had tugged the collar so low. Did she truly think they would interest a pubescent boy?

The shameless woman cornering her brother looks startled. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Harry’s older sister,” Dahlia informs her and she blanches.

“I was just inviting Harry out for a cup of tea,” The woman attempts to salvage the situation. “as thank you for defeating You-Know-Who. Maybe you could join us?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you!” Harry cries out. “I don’t even know you!”

“I’m afraid we are being expected elsewhere.” Dahlia refuses with a tight smile. “Here, Harry.”

Her brother happily hurries over to her side and takes her basket. She pulls out her wallet from her purse and hands that over too.

“Go pay.” She tells him quietly. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Once Harry was gone, she glances back at the disgruntled woman one last time. “I ever see you around my brother again, I’m contacting the Aurors.” Her tone was no longer polite, but downright venomous. “This meeting better be an accident, because if I found out you planned this…”

The bitch disappears with a pop, and Dahlia deflates. Jesus, she hadn’t realized she would have to protect her brother’s virtue from vultures at this age.

She’d been to some extent aware it might be a problem sooner or later, he was a rich celebrity and people were the same everywhere, whether they were magical or muggle, but she hadn’t expected it that soon.

Maybe she should look into those jewelry wards the richer purebloods carried around. There must be one that protected the wearer against love potions.

She couldn’t believe those abominations weren’t illegal. In her opinion, they were worse than date rape drugs.

Walking back to number 14, she has a serious conversation with Harry. They’ve gotten lucky she’d been there to prevent anything from happening this time, but he also had to be aware of the dangers in case she wasn’t.

“You need to be careful around people like that.” She tells him, adjusting the plastic bags in her hands.

“Like the woman in the store?” He asks. “What did she want?”

 Dahlia shrugs. “To marry you, I suppose.”

“But, she’s old.” Harry makes a repulsed face.

Actually, she’d been only in her mid-twenties, but the makeup she had caked on had aged her. A male uneducated in the matters of cosmetics wouldn’t have noticed.

“And you’re a catch.” She enlightens her brother. “Famous and rich and handsome. How could a gold-digger like her resist?”

“I’m eleven!”

“Yes,” Dahlia laughs. “and that means you are innocent and naïve – easy to seduce because you don’t know any better.” She stops to gravely look Harry in the eye. “In the future, I want to meet each and every one of your girlfriends – or boyfriends, I’m not picky – so that I can vet them. And you will absolutely not have unprotected sex with anyone but your wife/husband. Even if your partner tells you she is using contraceptives, don’t believe her. You’ll wear a rubber or cast the proper spells on yourself. We don’t need the complication of bastard children.” Harry frowns, confused, and she laughs again. “We’ll return to this talk when you’re a little older. Just, for now, remember that you’re too young for relationships and if anyone tries to pressure you into one, tell me. I’ll sic the police on them.”

It wasn’t a problem only Harry had to deal with. No one had yet to approach her that unashamedly, but she was aware of the quiet competition for her favor happening behind the scenes of the Pit – and she suspected the Eerie – between the students from neutral families and even a few of the darker ones. The sister of the Boy-Who-Lived, eldest of the two remaining heirs of the Potters, not a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff, intelligent, respectful of the traditional customs, pretty... All together, Dahlia might be a better catch than Harry himself.

She does her best to ignore it and thanks the heavens she wasn’t in danger of being forced into an arranged marriage.

If she ever marries, it would be for love. And currently, because of her mental age, she preferred older guys, so the classmates vying for her hand were out of luck.

Three weeks into their summer holidays, they fall into a routine. Their mornings start early with one of them making breakfast for the entire household. They are out of the house by 8:30 and Harry accompanies her while she goes around doing odd jobs in the neighborhood. Occasionally, he helps out and they talk a lot about all sorts of things, though it was mainly about the Wizarding world. She tells him what she remembers of Lily and James from the short months between her awakening and Voldemort’s attack, keeping to the light and happy memories and staying away from those tainted by the fear and paranoia that the adults had tried to hide from her with fake smiles. She also mentions the other three Marauders, always referring to them in the past tense and as Uncles Moony, Padfoot, and Wormtail. She might have inadvertently given Harry the impression they were dead and wasn’t in a hurry to correct him. He’d wonder why they never came to get them from the Dursleys if they had been so close to their parents and she had no idea what to tell him.

Sorry, but one of them is a werewolf who can barely afford to feed himself never mind two kids, the second is languishing without trial inside a prison guarded by soul-sucking monsters for a crime he didn’t commit and the third is hiding as your best mate’s pet rat because he was, in reality, the one who committed the crime the second is accused off? That would go over well.

On the weekends, they board the Tube and visit the Grangers. Dahlia leaves Harry at the door and makes her way to a nearby park, where she lies down in the shaded grass underneath a tree and studies muggle subjects. It was her backup plan in the event she could no longer stay in the Wizarding world for whatever reason. Like the Death Eaters winning and her having to hide from them, an act which would be easier to do in the more populous Muggle world. In that scenario, she’d be cut off from her Gringotts vault and she’d have to find work. Possessing a high school diploma or an equivalent will mean she won’t have to, say, wash dishes for a living in a tiny diner. And she’d have the choice of pursuing higher education. Since she would be doing this for a second time, her grades are bound to be better – maybe she’ll manage to get into a prestigious university like Oxford? That would be nice.

Humming along to her new Nirvana Walkman cassette – the Nevermind album, finally, she’d been waiting for it for years – Dahlia lounges on her stomach, one leg bobbling in the air to the music’s beat, and idly flips through her science workbook.

It was a nice day out, sunny, but not too hot, and that annoying little boy who was usually at the park with his mother around this time wasn’t present. She’d been there for about an hour already, but she still had several more to go. Harry and Hermione had loved the chance to meet up so often, and the bookworm girl had seized the opportunity to get Harry more interested in studying with fervor. Apparently, like her, Hermione was certain he could do better without Ron’s lazy influence – Dahlia likes the boy fine, he’s brave and devoted to his friends, but admit it, he isn’t the most studious.

Harry had always been a curious child. Unfortunately, at muggle school, he had to perform worse than Dudley to keep their aunt and uncle happy. Hogwarts should have been a new start but his very first friend just had to be Ron who would rather play chess or Exploding Snap all day than open a textbook. And her brother, scared of losing the redhead's friendship, also played chess and Exploding Snap instead of learning.

It was a little sad to watch when she remembered the little boy whose favorite word had been ‘why’ until the Dursleys had squashed it out of him. Maybe a summer with Hermione will remind him of his once love for knowledge.

Knowledge was good. Knowledge was power. Knowledge would keep him alive.

A shadow falls on her and she removes her headphones, staring up at the guy interrupting her studying.

He looked about her age with lanky blond hair and watery blue eyes. His average face was peppered with acne. She’s seen him around a few times, messing with his skater friends.

“You a swot?” He asks.

One of her eyebrows lifts in indignation. “Excuse me?”

“I’m asking if you’re a swot.” He repeats. “You’re always here with your giant textbooks.”

“I’m only here once a week, babysitting my younger brother while he’s visiting a school friend. And do I look like a swot to you?” She gestures to her Alice in Chains T-shirt and the studded belt holding up denim shorts.

The guy looks considering. “What are you listening to?”

“Nirvana.” She answers shortly. “What do you want?”

“We’re going to the arcade. Wanna come with us?” He offers, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

Dahlia glances at his group of friends standing some meters away from them. They were an almost even mix of both sexes and they were not the type of people Aunt Petunia would be happy to hear she was associating with.

Oh, what the hell. She was getting bored anyway. Shoving her textbook into her backpack, she stands up, brushing clean the front of her clothes.

“I’m Brian.” The guy grins, leading her back to his friends. “This is Morgan, Chelsea, Tom, Jesse, and Robbie. And this,” He grandiosely waves at the Airedale Terrier sitting calmly at Chelsea’s feet. “is Beckham.”

“Dahlia.” She introduces herself, crouching down to give the dog a hand to sniff.

“Not a swot, then?” Chelsea asks with a contemptuous toss of her auburn ponytail.  

“Nah.” Brian’s grin widens. “Pay up.”

There’re some grumbles, but money exchanges hand easily enough.

“You skate?” Robbie drops his skateboard on the ground and cruises alongside her as they begin moving in the direction she thought she’d seen an arcade before.

She shakes her head. “Don’t even have a board.”

Brian slows down to skate alongside her too. “We’ll teach you next time. You’re here every Sunday, right?”

A car drives by, the driver honking angrily at them for taking up most of the road and muffles her reply with the noise. Robbie yells back with foul language.

Yes, Aunt Petunia was certainly not going to be happy with her new acquaintances. Thankfully, this wasn’t Surrey and she wouldn’t hear about this from ‘concerned’ ‘friends’.

Dahlia has never been in a real arcade. She’s seen places with a couple of machines tucked away in the corner, but in her first life, it was already out of style during her childhood. In this life, there had been no arcades inside the area Dumbledore’s spell allowed her to roam and by the time she started Hogwarts and it broke, she was no longer interested. This led to some teasing from the skaters while she got the hang of the controls and had her ass kicked in Street Fighter.

Originally, she tagged along because she had nothing better to do, and she’s surprised she ended up having fun. The games may have been low-tech for a twenty-first-century girl, but the company was enjoyable. Chelsea had a rather amusing mean girl aura that reminded her of Avery, only she didn’t insult Dahlia every two sentences. It was pleasant to not hear anything demeaning from someone so full of themselves, for once. Morgan was more of a dark, edgy type of girl. Not quite goth, but borderline. She gravitated towards violent games and had wicked black humor. Tom was a charming, handsome pickpocket/conman, that had been evident in the first five minutes into their acquaintance. She kept a close eye on her wallet after spotting him steal the watch of a woman he’d helped gather dropped groceries on the street. Jesse, she suspected, was actually a girl underneath the loose boy clothes, though everyone referred to him as him/he. She wasn’t sure it was okay to ask to clarify and followed suit. Robbie was the rude daredevil who had the crazy ideas and Brian was his enabling stepbrother. They grew up together and were the same age. Apparently, there was a whole scandal surrounding all four of their parents and their births that no one except the older generation knew and they weren’t talking because both boys were suspecting they were threatened to silence by someone which was a pity. Considering the couples had swapped – Brian’s mum remarried Robbie’s dad and Robbie’s mum remarried Brian’s dad – it was bound to be an interesting story.

Of course, because she can’t have anything nice, as they are getting ready to leave, things start going wrong.

“She wasn’t there.” Morgan blurts out immediately after returning from checking the bathroom with an increasingly worried frown.

“We’ve looked everywhere else!” Robbie exclaims. “If she’s not there, she’s nowhere inside the building.”

Sighing, Dahlia pushes herself off the wall she had been leaning on since Chelsea’s disappearance had been noticed. It was near the entrance and she had been standing there guarding the doors while her new acquaintances searched the building.  

She approaches the snack bar and the pimply teen manning the cash register lifts his head irritably.

“What.”

Internally clucking her tongue at the excellent customer service, she waves her hand just above her head. “Have you seen our friend? About this high, brunet with a pink skateboard.”

The teen returns to his Tetris game. “Saw her leaving with some man a couple of minutes ago.”

“What did he look like?” She probes, annoyed. 

“Mid-thirties or somethin’. Wore a fancy suit.” Comes the distracted and uncaring reply.

“Thanks,” Dahlia says and stomps off.

Returning to the skaters, she finds them busy arguing about their next move. Morgan and Jesse insisted they should wait for Chelsea at the arcade, the others wanted to go look for her outside.

“Anyone knows a man in his mid-thirties who wears fancy suits?” She interrupts.

“No, why?” Tom asks, confused.

“Chelsea just left with him.” She updates them and the skaters exchange glances. “What is it?”

“We think she’s rich,” Brian explains to her.

“You think she’s rich?” She repeats drily. “You don’t know?”

Robbie nods. “She doesn’t talk much about herself, but she got that posh accent, even worse than yours, that shows occasionally when she’s not paying attention.”

“She goes to boarding school out in the countryside,” Morgan adds. “We only hang during the summer holidays.”

“Right.” Dahlia rubs her forehead. “Does she have a cellphone?”

“A what?” The skaters' chorus.

“Of course not. What was I thinking?” She mumbles to herself, before raising her voice again. “From this moment on, we are proceeding with the assumption that Chelsea had been kidnapped. Where is the nearest police station?”          

“Kidnapped?” Morgan yelps, but Tom was nodding along.

“Makes sense. C’mon, it’s not far.”

For all she knew, the man could be a family friend or a bodyguard come to urgently pick up his rich miss or Chelsea’s father or a thousand other things. But if Chelsea had known the man, she would have told her friends she was leaving. She knew they would worry otherwise. Which meant something was wrong. 

And, Dahlia reflects as they untied Beckham’s leash from the steel post they had left him waiting at while they were inside, she would have taken her dog with her.

“Wait! Wait.” Jessie suddenly speaks up.

“What?” Robbie snaps. “We need to hurry.”

“Someone needs to stay here.” He says, sitting down on the curb, nervously bouncing his leg. “Just in case we are overreacting and Chelsea returns.”

Dahlia had never been a runner. Physical exertion, in general, was not her favorite activity. She did the absolute minimum to remain healthy and it was enough for her. So, trying to keep up with the skaters on their boards was a painful experience. She develops an aching stitch in her side and every painting breath she took burned her throat.

As Gimli once said; she’s wasted on cross-country. She was a natural sprinter. Very dangerous over a short distance. And short distance meant three hundred meters, four hundred meters max.

This is why by the time Beckham suddenly veers off, barking into a secluded alley behind a shopping plaza, dragging Morgan who was holding his leash behind him, she was almost dead on her feet, adrenaline long spent.

But when they come face to face with a man in a fancy suit holding Chelsea up to a wall with a snake-like thing half-burrowed out of his neck, she gets a second wind.

“What the bloody fuck is that?” Robbie inquires a little too loudly and the thing’s head snaps around to look at them.

“Uh, we should run?” Tom proposes rather calmly, prompting Dahlia to slowly inch to his side because he was clearly a sensible person. When you see something as abnormal as this, you don’t stick around to investigate. It will inevitably end with you either dead, possessed, or drawn into an ancient war where you are expected to save all of mankind. There is usually a prophesy involved too – Dahlia hated those.

The snake hisses at them and strikes at Chelsea’s throat, digging deep into it.

The man’s body drops dead on the ground. Morgan screams.

“Unlucky fools.” Chelsea booms in a deep, echoing voice, turning to look at them. Her eyes were glowing. “For seeing this, you must die.”

“Run.” Tom decides.

Beckham lunges at what used to be Chelsea and they take the chance to escape. Scrambling back the way they came, they ignore the dog’s hurt yelp. Someone else’s pet wasn’t worth their life.   

“What about Chelsea?” Brian yells from somewhere behind Dahlia.

“Forget her!” Morgan screams at him. “I want to live!”

Classic Slytherin response. Dahlia approved.

They are almost at the exit of the alley when they get knocked right off their feet by tumbling over each other. It was like a domino effect – Brian, who was in front, trips first, then Robbie trips over him, then Morgan over Robbie, and so on.

Dahlia lands on her stomach, hissing when her palms and knees are scraped by the gravel and yelps when Tom lands on her back. “Get off!” 

“Fuck!” Robbie curses when a trash can is thrown in front of him impeding his path. The snake must have done something to Chelsea because normal humans weren’t that strong. 

Another thrown trash can almost takes off Morgan's head. 

“They're warning shots!” Tom realizes first. “It's playing with us! It'll really kill us if we try to leave!”

This was her summer vacation! It was supposed to be a break from the crazy! Dahlia dives for cover behind a metal dumpster, joined by Tom seconds later.

From where he was taking cover behind another dumpster with Morgan and Brian, Robbie curses again. 

Spitting a few choice words herself, Dahlia roots through her bag for her wand. She's aware she was forbidden from using magic during summer holidays, thanks for the unnecessary commentary from the peanut gallery, but she’s gotten a little paranoid during this life, and Quirrellmort’s attempt to hold her hostage hadn’t helped. She was carrying her wand everywhere with her now and she’s read up on wizarding laws. In mortal situations, underage wizards and witches were allowed to defend themselves. 

This was a mortal situation. 

“What are you doing?” Robbie yells at her. “How’s a stick going to be of use –”

“Shut up, I’m thinking.” She interrupts.

Dahlia didn’t remember ever reading about a people-possessing snake in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Granted, she’s far from an expert in magical creatures and she’d been only half paying attention to what she was reading, but still. She thinks she would have remembered something disturbing like that. Not even James had ever mentioned anything similar and he loved talking her ears off about whatever strange creature he was studying at the moment to the point of rambling about them in his letters. How anyone could find Flobberworms interesting enough to keep a conversation going about them for two whole hours…  

But – here her frown deepens – they didn’t sound entirely unfamiliar to her. There was something, just at the edge of her memory… Books? No, no. Movies? TV. Fanfiction. 

Her eyes widen. She knew what the snake was! There was this old show, in her previous life, Stargate? Something like that. And they had those alien snakes that possessed people. They were called goalud? No, it had an apostrophe. Goa’lud? Goa’uld? Goa’dul? Fuck, she’d watched the first season of the spinoff, the Atlantis one. They had Wraiths, not this shit. Why couldn’t it be one of those? Actually, never mind. Wraiths were practically unkillable, she preferred tiny snakes she knew almost nothing about over vampiric hive-minded immortal humanoids. It should be easier to kill.

Probably.

Peaking around the side of the dumpster, Dahlia watches as Chelsea pulls off some kind of device from the arm of the dead guy. It was golden and shaped like a glove with an orangy-red gem thing on the palm. A weapon, Dahlia would wager anything.

Slowly putting the glove on Chelsea, the snake meets Dahlia's eyes and smiles a horrible smile. She ducks her head back behind the car and pursing her lips, she casts her gaze around for ideas. 

Nothing. She had fucking nothing. They weren't going to win this without magic and she preferred to avoid that. It would cause her a lot of headaches with the Ministry after. And in any case, she had no idea how to free Chelsea. 

“Throw!” Dahlia mimics the action of throwing to the skaters hiding behind the other car, exaggerating the silently mouthed word, then points to the broken asphalt beside them.

When pieces of asphalt fly at the snake, distracting it into using some kind of energy wave with the hand weapon to avoid being hit in the head with heavy rocks, she scrabbles over to their side, Tom at her heels. “We need to run.” She declares. 

“But Chelsea!” Brian objects. 

"You feel like cutting that snake out of her?” Tom asks ruthlessly. "I don't know about you, but I'm not a surgeon. We'll kill her. Let the coppers deal with this.”

The boy deflates.

“Are you done planning?” The snake calls out to them with amusement coloring its weird voice. 

Oh. So, that was why it hadn't attacked yet. It really was playing with them. It didn’t think anything they could do could hurt it.

It may be right.

Luckily, a door to a nearby restaurant opens and a young man steps out, carrying a bag of trash. “Hey, you can’t be here.” He says, noting Chelsea. “This is privaaate – what the fuck is this!”

“Run,” Dahlia yells, over the man’s own screaming.  

Without looking back, they run.

It didn’t mean they couldn’t hear what was happening behind them.

Chapter Text

Surprise, surprise.

They get away. Somehow. And Dahlia hadn’t even needed to use magic.

After they had gotten their breath back and finished panicking, they go to the police. There, they spun a story of lies and half-truths, saying there was a madman on the loose with an experimental weapon.

They learn the snake had massacred the entire restaurant. The corpse of the man who had been possessed before Chelsea was found on scene and turned out to be a criminal on the run from law enforcement for a very long list of charges, including multiple murders. After looking over the restaurant’s surviving security tapes, the police’s theory was that he’d been brainwashing Chelsea and she had turned on him for one reason or another. Dahlia’s theory was that the snake had been planning on switching hosts to get away from the police on its tail and hadn’t been intending on actually murdering anyone until they gatecrashed the party.

The glowing eyes that had shown up on the indoor tape had been easily explained as a trick of light and thank goodness, the camera into the alley hadn’t been working. Dahlia didn’t know where to even begin explaining the parasite snake.

Their parents – and legal guardians in her case – were called in. After subtly informing her uncle and aunt this had nothing to do with ‘her lot’, they were much more pleasant to deal with and quickly forgot about her. Uncle Vernon happily spent a good long while yelling at the poor police offices about how his tax money was going to waste paying for such incompetence and why hasn’t that nutter been caught yet?!

As she left the police station with the Dursleys hours later, Dahlia catches a glimpse of a richly dressed couple sitting in the corner, both crying. By their feet, a heavily bandaged dog had laid its head on their knees.

Chelsea’s parents. And Beckham.

The girl hadn’t been found yet. She disappeared after the restaurant and Dahlia would bet a hundred bucks she wouldn’t be alive when – if – they do. Had Dahlia been the snake, she would have found herself another host, ASAP, and staged the last’s death as a suicide.

Tom gives a friendly wave when she passes by. He was arguing with an officer about the skateboard he had dropped in the alley in all the chaos and the fear for his life. The rest had also forgotten their own and Morgan had already tried her luck getting hers back with no success. According to the frustrated police in face of the indignant teens, the boards were evidence and would be withheld until the conclusion of the case. Which could take years.

Tom’s guardian – a man too young to be his father, but whose remarkably similar features marked him as a relation of sorts – also gives her a charming grin. She smiles back weakly and steps out of the police station.

The entire following week was devoted to panickily wondering what other fandoms were wandering around the universe.

Firstly, she rules out most of those she knew had anything to do with space, except any that happened in a galaxy far, far away. Pity Avatar wasn’t real. She’d have loved to try out the body-switching technology and get to know the Na’vi culture. She even knew the language already.

Actually, no wait. Pandora was in the Alpha Centauri System which as far as Dahlia knows didn’t appear in any of the Stargate shows. It totally could exist.

…She’s putting studying up on space beyond the extremely basic astronomy stuff they’re doing at Hogwarts on her to-do list. Because believe her, if there’s even the slightest chance she might one day get to go to space, to walk on another planet, she’s gonna take it.

Oh, but… Fuck. Didn’t the movie happen somewhere in the late twenty-first, early twenty-second century? She’d be a really old lady by then, no one would take her no matter how many compulsion charms she cast.

Awww, that’s not fair. Forget magic, she wanted to meet giant blue aliens.

Cosmetic charms to look younger? What exact year did humans first step unto Pandora? Wizards have a life expectancy of almost 138 years, that’s means I could live up to the early 2100s… Would that be enough? Or should I go beg the Flamels for a couple extra decades?

Dahlia also immediately rules out most of the Marvel and DC universes after a quick history check. No World War 2 records spoke of either Captain America or Wonder Woman, who to her limited knowledge on the subject were two of the earliest heroes to have existed timeline-wise and who should have been pretty big deals. That had been enough to convince her. Alien invasions every other week and supervillain attacks every day didn’t sound fun. She had enough trouble with her one supervillain, she didn’t need more of them to worry about.

The DC universe she wasn’t sure about had to do with Marvel’s mutants. In the comics, Captain America and Wolverine met, but neither movie series had given signs of the other’s existence. Magneto and his Brotherhood? It was brotherhood, right? could be real and she didn’t know enough to check if they were. When did they start assembling? They were terrorists; who did they kill and what have they destroyed? What is the name of Professor X’s school and when was it established?

And then there was Ryan Reynolds with his two different Deadpools. Green Lantern too, but she had already ruled out DC, thank fuck. This was already confusing enough.

So many questions, so little information.

There is a lot that is shrouded in thousands-of-years-old mysteries and government conspiracies. With the internet almost non-existent, collecting data proved to be very difficult. A fandom like Teen Wolf could only be confirmed by spending an inordinate amount of time in the library flicking through falling apart newspapers from decades past searching for clues in stories that could be fake. Or by actively going to look for, say, a werewolf pack or a group of Hunters. Which she wasn’t going to do, are you crazy? She’s stocking up on aconite aka wolfsbane, though. Thankfully, it was a commonish ingredient in potions and easy to get. She could even plant a few varieties in Aunt Petunia’s garden. 

Speaking of the werewolves. It makes you think of vampires too, doesn’t it? Which in turn makes you think of Twilight.

Twilight with its sparkly and creepy pedophilic stalkers. Twilight with its lovesick, idiotic, and occasionally suicidal teenage girls. 

If Twilight is real, I will Avada Kedavra myself.

Or Fifty Shades of Grey, which from what I know, and I didn’t torture myself by reading it, was even worse.

Seriously, I don’t care if it is supposed to be impossible to use the Killing Curse on oneself. I’ll find a way.

Yeah, okay, I won’t go that far. I like being alive too much and there is always the chance of me reincarnating again somewhere even worse.

I’d prefer avoiding finding out if this is a one-time thing for as long as possible, thanks.

But I’m certainly never, ever, going to Forks, Washington. Nuh-uh.

And if Christian Gray is real, I’m slipping him some poison in his drink. For the good of all women everywhere. I’ll nick Harry’s Invisibility Cloak and they’ll never trace it back to me.

Future me, remember, I’m working off the idea that the creatures described in Twilight and Teen Wolf are actually subspecies of the Harry Potter werewolves and vampires who somehow managed to evade the Wizarding world all this time. What? It could happen.

Also, the La Push pack aren’t werewolves. They’re skin-walkers or something similar.

What else? I know I’m forgetting something… Oh, right.

Yuri!!! on Ice is real, so not everything is bad. Imagine my surprise when a sports news anchor referred to figure skating coach Yakov Feltsman and his wife, Lilia Baranovskaya, the Prima Ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet before Dudley changed the channel to one of his usual stupid cartoon programs.

Viktor isn’t even born yet – I think – and he already has a fan.

There must have been a lot of similar instances I have simply subconsciously dismissed as coincidences. But now I am paying attention and I notice them.

Note: get an anti-possession tattoo. Doesn’t have to be big and screw Aunt Petunia if she finds out. I’m not risking being possessed by a demon.

Additional note: do a background check on local suspicious deaths and weird incidents. Also, stock up on salt. And plan for zombie apocalypse of all types just in case. The Walking Dead, Zombieland, World War Z, Z Nation, 28 Days/Months Later – it could be any of them. Magic is a decent weapon, but won’t replace a good, old-fashioned baseball bat.

God, and I thought I was paranoid before.

More notes: There was something crazy going on in Egypt in the ’20s. I’m also finding a lot of legends about a Hamunaptra which I’m pretty fucking certain didn’t exist in my old life. Do I have to worry about armies of mummies now too? Ugh.

Last note:  Rick and Evelyn O’Connell were real people. I found a book Evy wrote on archeology at the local library. Fuuuck.

From the corner of her eye, Dahlia notices the door opening and she lifts her head from her journal, pen pausing on the page she’d been filling out with her research on other potential fandoms and the chances of their existence. To her frustration, there was a lot of inconclusive.

Harry comes into the room, closes the door quietly, and only barely manages to stifle a shout of surprise when he turns around.

Dropping the pen and setting aside the board of wood serving her as a flat surface to write on, Dahlia lowers her headphones around her neck. “What’s wrong?”

Dudley’s voice echoes from downstairs. “May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?”

Ah, yes. Uncle Vernon’s dinner guests have arrived. Her music must have drowned out the sound of the doorbell.

Harry ignores her. “Er… hello.” He says nervously, staring upwards.

“Harry Potter!” A high-pitched voice exclaims from his bed and Dahlia flinches badly. “So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir… Such an honor it is…”

Oh god, how long has Dobby been there?!

Uncrossing her legs, she scrambles up from the bed to stand near her brother, peering up at the house-elf in all his big-eyed, floppy-eared glory. She’d been waiting for him, and she didn’t even notice his arrival.

That’s what happens when you blast your music at full volume, she mentally scolds herself.

“What exactly is a house-elf doing in my room?” Dahlia asks. “Without permission? Whose family do you belong to?”

“Dobby has come to see Harry Potter, miss,” Dobby answers earnestly.

“Oh… really?” Harry shifts on his feet nervously. “Er, I don’t want to be rude or anything, but… this isn’t a great time for me.” The elf hangs his head sadly and he hurries to reassure him. “Not that I’m not pleased to meet you, I really am. It’s nice to meet you, Dobby.”

Dahlia rolls her eyes as Dobby predictably bursts into tears. House-elves. Even the ones at Hogwarts had their moments.

“Never… never has anyone been pleased to meet Dobby!”

The voices coming from the dining room falter.

“Alright, that’s enough blubbering, please do shut up,” Dahlia says. Harry sends her an appalled glance. “Aunt Petunia hates magic. If she finds you here, she will be very cross with Harry. Do you want that, Dobby? Do you want Harry punished?”

Dobby shuts up, looking horrified. “No! No, no, Dobby does not want Harry Potter punished.”

She softens her tone. “That’s good. You’ll be quiet now, won’t you?”

“Dobby will be quiet.” Dobby practically whispers. The threat of Harry being punished must have been particularly effective.

“Why are you here? Again, without permission?” Dahlia purses her lips, acting displeased. “It is the height of rudeness for a house-elf, Dobby. You must know that.”

Dobby dabs at his large eyes with his grubby pillowcase toga. “Dobby is truly sorry, miss. Dobby knows how rude he is and will press his ears in the oven for it, but Dobby had no choice. Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter. He came to warn him. Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts.”

There is a pause as Harry attempts to find another meaning in the elf’s words.

“W-what?” He eventually stammered out. “But I’ve got to go back. I don’t belong here. I belong in your world. At Hogwarts.”

“No, no, no,” Dobby squeaked loudly, before regulating the volume again. “Harry Potter must stay where he is safe. He is too great, too good, to lose. If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in mortal danger.”

“Why?” Dahlia asks all while remembering the skeleton of a Titanoboa she had once seen in a museum. Was the Basilisk even bigger? How did it even fit in the pipes? The walls of Hogwarts must be very thick indeed for it to slither about in them.

“There is a plot, miss. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.” Dobby confides, trembling. “Dobby has known it for months. Harry Potter must not put himself in peril. He is too important!”

“What terrible things?” Harry asked at once which sensible, but useless if one knew anything about house-elves. Dobby was already saying everything he could. “Who’s plotting them?”

“He can’t tell you.” Dahlia interrupts before Dobby began punishing himself again. She turns back to the elf. “Thank you, Dobby, for the warning. We’ll take it into consideration.”

But he doesn’t look convinced. “Harry Potter must not. Never, ever.”

“You don’t know what it’s like here! It’s bloody horrible!” Harry explodes and Dahlia shushes him. “Hogwarts the only place I’ve got! All my friends are there!”

“Friends who don’t even write to Harry Potter?” Dobby said slyly.

Harry frowns. “Hang on, how do you know that?”

“Harry Potter mustn’t be angry with Dobby.” Harry’s eyes narrow further in suspicion. “Dobby did it for Harry Potter, sir.”

“Were you the one who’s been stopping my letters?”

“Dobby has them here, sir.” The elf said and pulled out a wad of envelopes from the inside of his pillowcase toga. Dahlia could make out Hermione’s neat writing, Ron’s untidy scrawl, and a scribble that looked as though it was from Hagrid. How did she know what they looked like? Simple, she’s seen some of their other letters.

When Harry started visiting Hermione, she asked him why he wasn’t answering her letters. They quickly figured out somebody had been intercepting it and conducted a little experiment – Harry would write his letters at Hermione’s house and she would be the one sending them. In turn, Harry’s letters will be sent to her and she would pass them on to Harry the next time he visited. It worked splendidly and Dobby never realized Harry was communicating with his friends again.  

“Harry Potter mustn’t be angry,” Dobby repeated. “Dobby hoped if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten him Harry Potter might not want to go back to school, sir. Harry Potter will have them, sir, if he gives Dobby his word that he will not return to Hogwarts.”

“Promise him,” Dahlia whispers to her brother behind a raised hand. “He won’t leave you alone if you don’t.”

“I’m not going to!” Harry declares angrily. “I’m going back to Hogwarts.”

She rolls her eyes again. “I’m not telling you to follow through with the promise. I’m telling you to lie to him. He’ll believe the great Harry Potter.”

“If Harry Potter does not promise, he leaves Dobby no choice,” Dobby says sadly.

Before they could move, Dobby had jumped off the bunk bed, darted to the bedroom door, pulled it open, and sprinted down the stairs. Harry follows after him with no hesitation, but Dahlia merely pinches the bridge of her nose. “I was trying to avoid this.” She informs no one and goes back to sit on her bed. Maybe if she pretended to have nothing to do with the events happening in the dining room, Uncle Vernon will go easy on her.

There is a crash as the pudding – a masterpiece of cream and sugared violets – Aunt Petunia had worked so hard on falls and the dish shatters on the floor. The distinctive pop of Apparition follows as Dobby escapes his scene of crime.

A few minutes later, Mrs. Mason screams and runs from the house screaming about lunatics and birds. Another few minutes later, Uncle Vernon comes thundering upstairs, laughing maniacally and dragging Harry after him.

“Did something happen, Uncle Vernon?” She asks, innocent as a lamb. “There was a lot of noise downstairs. How was your dinner? Did you get the order you were hoping for?”

“You are never going back to that freaky school of yours!” He snarls at her, pushing Harry into the room and leaves, slamming the door after him.

She lowers the book she’d been pretending to read and gives Harry a reproachful look. “Happy?”

He was not.

“What are house-elves?” He growls.

“Magical beings.” She tells him. “They serve witches and wizards. They are usually owned by old and rich families. They are magically bound to obey any command their master gives them and to be loyal to them. It is why Dobby couldn’t tell you who was planning on causing trouble for you. If they are given clothes by their master they are set free, but they consider it the greatest dishonor. They enjoy being servants. Hogwarts has a number of them, I can introduce you if you want.”

Harry doesn’t want to meet other elves. He wants something to scream at. He collapses into his bed and stifles his angry shout with his mattress.

“Suit yourself.” Dahlia shrugs and returns to her book. Way she saw it, this was entirely his own fault. Harry could have avoided being punished by Uncle Vernon by lying to the elf. Now, she had to bail him out of trouble. Again.

The very next day after the disastrous dinner party, Uncle Vernon hires a man to put bars on their window and personally fits a lock on the bedroom door. Dahlia was recruited into bringing her brother food thrice a day and other than being let out in the morning and the evening to use the bathroom, he was imprisoned inside.

Dahlia herself is let off the hook after a long lecture on her failure to keep Harry in line, though it was largely because her various jobs made it hard for the Dursleys to keep her in isolation for long without her employers noting something was wrong. She had always notified them in advance if she couldn’t make it and her sudden disappearance would raise questions.

Unwilling to be stuck in a small room with a moody almost teenaged boy, she spends a lot of time at the local library working on her language skills – she was currently learning German.

She did make sure to contact Hermione and inform her Harry was in need of ‘saving’ as soon as she had an opportunity to get her hands on a public payphone, so that was handled. The Weasleys should be arriving any day and she was already all packed and ready to go.

On the night of the breakout, she is woken by the too-loud revving of a car and an abrupt crunching noise. It was the bars being pulled clean out of the window.  

“Whazzat?” She asks, groggily peering through a curtain of hair at the turquoise car that was hovering outside with its three red-haired occupants. “Oh, it’s you.”

The Weasleys shared an identical ‘oh shit’ expression with Harry as they stared back at her – didn’t want to wake her up or something? Planning on escaping without her, are they? Not going to happen. You think she’d willing to stay back and deal with the fallout of Harry’s breakout? Uncle Vernon might not get physical often but this would definitely be one of those times he would. She’ll be forced to kiss whatever little freedom she had goodbye and she’ll have to start planning her own getaway from this very same room. Only, the window will probably be bricked up and she would be unable to contact any of her friends for help.

No, better leave now while she still could.

Yawning, she pushed back the thick strands from her face and swings her legs over the edge of the mattress.

Under the moonlight, the Weasleys’ faces flush. Dahlia resists the urge to roll her eyes. She wasn’t indecent! Okay, yes, her nightgown came to rest just above her bare knees and the silk might be a bit much, but she enjoyed how it felt against her skin. And her body was hardly developed enough to make it sexy. Wizard sensibilities. It made prudes out of all of them.

“Potter.” Fred – or was it George? She never knew – says curtly. “We’re here to take Harry with us. We’d appreciate it if you kept quiet.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She tells him, putting on a robe matching the nightgown and tying it close. “I’m coming with you.”

“You are?” Harry says, surprised.

“You are?” The Weasleys chorus.

“Of course.” She moves over to her dresser and pulls out her wallet. “The Dursleys are threatening to keep me out of school too, you know.”

Setting aside a stack of pounds where Aunt Petunia was bound to notice when cleaning the room, Dahlia pens a quick letter on a discarded piece of paper she had used to calculate a complicated equation with detailed diagrams for her Arithmancy homework. She had then noticed it was wrong and had to start it all over again on another sheet.

Dear Aunt and Uncle,

The money is for the window from my personal savings. If it is not enough, I will pay you back every penny you spent on repairs next summer, I promise.

Please inform Dudley that Mrs. Trent from two houses down needs help tomorrow. She will pay him handsomely for it.

Your niece,

Dahlia

“Our trunks were locked in the cupboard under the stairs after the house-elf fiasco.” She says distractedly.

“House-elf?” Ron mouths at Harry behind her back.

“I’ll tell you later.” He mouths back.

The twins climb out of the car and pick the locked door with a hairpin with surprising skill.

“A lot of wizards think it’s a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick,” One of them explains. “but we feel they’re skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow.”

There was a small click and the door swung open.

“We’ll get your trunks, you grab anything you need from your room and hand it out to Ron.” The other whispers.

“The bottom stair creaks.” She informs them as they disappear onto the dark landing, already rifling through her tower of books. Should she take the German dictionary?  

Harry dashes around all excited, collecting his things and passing them out of the window to Ron. That done, he goes help the twins haul their magic belongings up the stairs, a feat that required two trips.

As the boys maneuvered the trunks into the car’s boot – she’s finally getting the hang of British English! – she grabs Hedwig’s cage. “Can’t forget you, pretty.”

It’s a clean escape. The Dursleys peacefully snore in their beds the entire time, utterly unaware. Dahlia settles down in the backseat and takes the offered hairpin from a twin, before demonstrating her own lockpicking skills. Tom was a good teacher and soon Hedwig was stretching her wings for the first time that summer. Her lack of freedom had been the source of many disagreements between Harry and Uncle Vernon, and even she had attempted to get their uncle to let the poor animal out of her cage for a few minutes to no avail.

“So, what’s the story, Harry?” Ron prompted her brother impatiently. “Why’d you need rescuing?”

“There was a house-elf, ruined Uncle Vernon’s important dinner party using the magic that had been blamed on me,” Harry explains. “He’s been the one stealing my letters.”

“Why would he do that?” The Weasley twin at the wheel twists around in his seat to look at them.

“He didn’t want Harry to go back to Hogwarts.” Dahlia answers. “Something about someone plotting to do terrible things there this year. Of course, then you have to wonder what can be worse than a Dark Lord-possessed teacher having access to impressionable children…”

“He wouldn’t tell you who’s the bad guy?” The second twin asks.

“House-elf magic.” She shrugs. “Can’t betray his masters. He already had to punish himself heavily for telling us what he did. Any more and he’d be crippling himself.”

“Is it possible this was a prank?” Fred – she thinks – wonders. “Know anyone who could find something so tasteless funny?”

“Someone with a grudge?” George adds.

Dahlia giggles. “He’s Harry Potter.” She points out. “Anyone who’s parent was a supporter of the Dark Lord would have a grudge. Most of Slytherins, half of Ravenclaw… It’ll be impossible to find the culprit based on that requirement. And nearly all of them are rich enough to own a house-elf.”

“What about Malfoy?” Ron interjects. “He would easily –”

“He does fit the profile – son of an assumed inner circle Dark Lord supporter who claimed he had been Imperioused into it to get out of jail and they are certainly rich enough to own several house-elves,” She agrees, giggling again. “but you’re overestimating him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry exclaims.

“Oh, nothing.” She waves it off with a badly hidden smile.

Harry and Ron look outraged and ready to demand more answers, but Dahlia turns her head to look out the window to watch as the cityscape turned into the countryside, effectively ending her participation in the conversation. She was too sleepy to get into the complexities of a Slytherin. The lions had it easy with their brash, honest personalities. They wore their hearts on their sleeves and read like open books.

Having spent a year living in close quarters with Malfoy, she definitely knew he didn’t hate Harry nearly as much as he pretended. He’d be bored without Harry being there to needle at. Even that time with the fake duel, he had only been trying to get Harry and Ron in trouble, not expelled.

Her brother could be such an idiot at times, she thinks in an exasperated sisterly way. Who even gets expelled for merely wandering the corridors at night? The Weasley twins have been caught a dozen times before they found the Marauders’ Map and they were still in school.

Malfoy treated his rivalry with Harry like a semi-serious game with his friends. They spent a lot of time in the evening after they were done with their homework, sitting in the Common Room thinking up new insults to use the next day. He could do a whole lot worse if he really wanted to. All he had to do was use his father’s money and influence, but he didn’t because it wasn’t that important to him in the grand scheme of things. Thought, it was probably going to change in the future…

She was aware that as the older sister, she should put a stop to it. Problem was; she was well aware there was nothing she could do. Going snitching to the teachers wasn’t going to endear her to her Housemates and it wasn’t as if that ever worked for anyone before. She could only ask the snakelets to not do so in her hearing. To his credit, after the Forbidden Forest detention, Malfoy did become more discreet about it.

Beside her, the boys had shifted the conversation towards Arthur Weasley and his fascination with all things muggle. On the horizon, a faint pinkish line was becoming visible, quickly growing into a red sun. It becomes clear they were moving towards a house standing in the middle of a field that looked as if it had once been a large pigpen of stone, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several crooked stories high and was held up only by the grace of magic. Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof and a lopsided sign stuck in the ground near the entrance read THE BURROW. Dahlia was rethinking her decision to stay with the Weasleys for the rest of the summer. There was no way that shack was structurally sound.  

Fred lands the car with a slight bump next to a rundown garage, scattering the multitude of brown chickens roaming the yard with indignant clucks.

“It’s not much,” Ron says, almost embarrassed, as they disembark.

“It’s wonderful,” Harry assures his friend happily and Dahlia side-eyes him skeptically.

“Now, we’ll go upstairs really quietly,” Fred – or was it, George? She was confused again – says. “and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, ‘Mum, look who turned up in the night!’ and she’ll be all pleased to see you two and no one need ever know we flew the car.”

And how did we get to the Burrow in the first place, Dahlia wants to ask, the Knight Bus? The wards would have noticed it.

…There were wards, right? Muggles would have long since noticed something was wrong if there weren’t any, so there must be some.

Arthur Weasley was a joke in the Pit.

Most of her Housemates didn’t think he could charm his way out of a paper bag.

But then again – Dahlia considers, heaving her trunk out from the flying car’s boot – it took skill to enchant the said car. And she seems to recall him being able to produce a Patronus.

“Ah.” One of the twins says unenthusiastically.

“Oh, dear.” The other echoed.

Dahlia spins to look back at the house again and almost cowers in the face out the short, plump, kind-faced woman marching across the yard towards them.

Scary.

In the moment, she definitely believed this woman could kill Bellatrix Lestrange, despite the flowered apron.

Molly Weasley came to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, glaring at her suddenly nervous children.  “So.” She says lowly.

“Morning, Mum.” The twin closest to Dahlia tries and she edges away from him.

“Morning, mum?! MORNING, MUM?!” Mrs. Weasley explodes. “HAVE YOU ANY IDEA HOW WORRIED I’VE BEEN?!” They might have been taller than her, but all three red-heads hunched their shoulders until their mother towered over them as she yelled. “Beds empty! No note! Car gone – could have crashed – out of my mind with worry – did you care? – never, as long as I’ve lived – you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy –”

“Perfect Percy.” Fred? muttered.

Dahlia took another step back away from the Weasleys.

“YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY’S BOOK!” Mrs. Weasley’s voice rose to higher volumes, prodding a finger into her son’s chest. “You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job –”

The dressing down didn’t end until Mrs. Weasley had shouted herself hoarse. Dahlia’s ears were ringing and she had to swallow back ‘yes, mom’ and ‘sorry, mom’ and ‘won’t happen again, mom’ at quite a few points.

She hadn’t been near her own mom in more than a decade.

“I’m very pleased to see you, Harry, Dahlia, dears.” Mrs. Weasley says turning towards them with a motherly countenance. “Come in and have some breakfast.”

Following after the woman, Dahlia jumps over the jumble of rubber boots and the very rusty cauldron lying around the front door and enters the kitchen. The space was small and rather cramped, barely fitting the scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle. Needles were knitting a jumper in the corner, hovering over a worn couch. On the mantlepiece, books were stacked three deep with titles such as Charm Your Own Cheese, Enchantment in Baking, and One Minute Feasts—It’s Magic! The old radio next to a sink with a self-washing pan was announcing that coming up was ‘Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck.’. On one of the walls was hanging the famous clock, silver spoons depicting the names of the family member it belonged to with their moving photograph. In place of hours, there were a series of possible locations, including home, school, work, traveling, lost, hospital, prison, mortal peril, and for some unfathomable reason, dentist. Since most wizards had no idea what dentists were, it was a little out of place.

It was cozy. Homey. It couldn’t be more different from Number 4.

“Sorry, Mrs. Weasley,” She addressed the woman already clattering around, cooking breakfast and muttering things about her unruly sons under her nose. “is there anywhere I could change?”

“Hm?” Mrs. Weasley blinks at her and takes in her dressing gown and bare feet for the first time. “Oh, yes. Yes. Head on up, dear. First floor, first door. Do wake Ginny up for me, please? Fred, help her with her trunk.”

Fred looks happy to escape his mother and heaves her trunk up the creaky steps without arguments. They seemed to have reached an impromptu cease-fire, although Dahlia was certain it wouldn’t hold for long. They’ll be back to fighting each other soon enough, and the twins will have the advantage of knowing the layout and having an extensive collection of prank items.

Fred goes back to the kitchen and Dahlia raps on the door labeled GINEVRA’S ROOM with the back of her knuckles. “What?” Ginny replies, annoyed and her voice muffled.

“Your mother wants you downstairs.” She calls through the door.

There is a second of silence and the door opens a sliver. “Who’re you?” Ginny asks, examining her between the crack.

“Harry Potter’s older sister.” There’s a small gasp. “We’ll be staying for the rest of the summer,” Dahlia explains. “As I understand, as the only girls, I’ll be rooming with you.”

The door opens wider and she steps in, dragging her trunk behind her and appraising the girl who might be her sister-in-law one day with a snooping glance. She was a pretty one if nothing else, with the typical Weasley family traits of red hair and freckles. Unlike Ron, she had inherited Molly’s brown eyes and small stature.  She was also fidgeting excitedly, shooting looks at the stairs. Eager to meet Harry, huh?

“I’m Dahlia.” She introduces herself. “I don’t snore and I won’t touch your things without permission.”

“You can put your things there.” Ginny vaguely waves and makes her escape, thundering down.

Dahlia chuckles and smiles at the room. It was small but bright with pink walls. On one wall there was a large poster of the Weird Sisters and the other a picture ripped from a magazine of Gwenog Jones, the Captain of the Holyhead Harpies, an all-witch Quidditch team. A worn desk stood facing the open window which overlooked an orchard. Stuffed toys were lying on the messy bed and an old broom peeked out from underneath it. On a bookshelf, there was the well-worn collection of about fifty tomes about her brother and his childhood adventures where he flew on dragons and fought with Dark wizards that she had been told was extremely popular and that she was going to sue the hell out when she had time. She was also told she was mentioned rarely and when she was she was usually the damsel in distress.

She wouldn’t be surprised if most wizards didn’t even know she existed. Whatever. She didn’t care whether she was famous or not. She was just a little annoyed they had immediately relegated to the role of a fairytale princess.

Chapter Text

Harry thrived at the Burrow. He loved everything about it from the rude mirror hanging over the kitchen mantlepiece to the ghoul that lived in the attic and made noise at all hours of the night. 

Dahlia was not as thrilled to be there. There were too many people and not enough space to take a breath. The twins were around every corner with a prank. Mrs. Weasley was as happy to mother her as she mothered Harry and that irritated the hell out Dahlia’s extremely independent, mentally adult self. The worst was Mr. Weasley’s every condescending comment about ‘How smart muggles were!’ or ‘How fascinating they were!’ that revealed the inner bigot he didn’t realize he was.

It wasn’t the same kind of bigotry as the bigotry of a traditionalist pureblood. Arthur Weasley – and many other ‘good’ wizards for that matter such as the rest of the Weasleys and Hagrid to name a few – may not believe wizards should be ruling over the muggles like kings and queens, but they still unconsciously assumed themselves superior simply because they could use magic. To them all, muggles were an inferior race. Every time Mr. Weasley exclaimed over a muggle invention gave the impression he thought that just because they couldn’t use magic, muggles were inherently less smart than wizards and they should have been living in shacks and mucking about in mud instead of actually being more advanced than wizards, though he didn’t quite realize that last part. Dahlia had the chance to flip through Ron’s beloved The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle comics and it was… yeah. Fucking piece of trash suitable only for kindling.

Very quickly, Dahlia began packing her school satchel with enough snacks to last her the day, plenty of entertainment, and disappearing into the nearby orchards or the fields or anywhere that didn’t have yet another Weasley in the vicinity. She didn’t come back until it was time for supper and while at first Mrs. Weasley worried herself sick over her vanishing, mentioning plans on meeting up again with Cedric Diggory the next morning over a plate of mashed potatoes one evening calms her down. According to Mrs. Weasley, Diggory was a nice and clever young man who could no wrong and who’ll keep Dahlia out of trouble. 

She tactfully decided not to reveal that the first time she had come upon her year-mate during her exploring, he had fallen off a tree right on top of her and almost cracked open both of their skulls on a large rock. Later, he would explain that he had been returning a chick to its nest after it had tumbled out and the branch he had climbed on hadn’t held his weight. 

She had internally cursed him out long and hard for the heart attack she almost had while combing through her hair to check the bloody wound he had given her. It would have scarred without the magical help of his mother.

Funnily enough, it was only after Mrs. Diggory had left them in her yard with glasses of lemonade that Diggory had squinted at her and said, “Potter?” in a disbelieving tone. 

She had lifted her eyebrow in response. “Did you seriously just realize?”

Apparently, dressed muggle with dirty knees and twigs in her hair, she was unrecognizable to people who had only seen her in proper pureblood getup before. 

On the Wednesday they were to visit Diagon Alley, Dahlia opens her trunk by unlocking the heavily enchanted combination lock – her roommates, like any self-respecting Slytherins, were snoops – and with Ginny busy in the loo, shamelessly slips off her nightgown and considers her outfit options in but her boyshorts.

The trunk was her most expensive possession bar some gifted jewelry, and it had been worth every Galleon she spent on it. Having expected to carry around with her most of her worldly belongings for at least seven years, she hadn’t penny-pinched when it came to choosing the perfect one. Standing instead of lying down, its left side was divided into uneven halves, the edge-most one longer lengthwise and narrower widthwise than the other. There, she hung her dresses, robes, and pants from hangers that floated in the air. The second half had shelves for the rest of her clothes and her shoes. It also had drawers on the bottom where she kept her underwear, jewelry, makeup, and other necessities. 

The right side of her trunk had bookshelves for her many, many books – most rescued from the dump in the Room of Requirement – and more drawers. One of them was specially designed to hold phials of various shapes and in another, she stored her potion ingredients. A third had her equipment which ranged from knives and stirring rods to dragonhide gloves. Her cauldron was placed in yet another special compartment. In the rest of the drawers, she kept her many binders of notes, the sheets of parchment she used to hand in her assignments, pens, and anything else she would need for class. 

Logically, all that shouldn’t be able to fit inside the normal-looking trunk, but magic.

By the time Ginny comes back into the bedroom, Dahlia was almost done fussing in front of the ornate floating full-length mirror that had come with the trunk and was usually stored in the robe compartment. The white blouse she had finally decided on was tucked into the high waist of her skirt and her socks were secured to the garters she had clipped around her tights. Her cute Cuban-heeled Mary Janes were freshly polished and the wrinkles had been smoothed out of her summer robes. Her hair had been given a few passes with a hairbrush until she no longer looked like a stereotypical witch. All that was left was to dab on a hint of gloss and pin a particularly favored sapphire and diamond crescent brooch to her bow tie cravat of dark silk and Dahlia could be mistaken for a little pureblood witch from a rich, but not too rich, Traditional family. No wonder Ginny wrinkles her nose as she passes by.

“Well, I like it.” Dahlia snaps stung. She leaves the room back ramrod straight and teeth clenched.

Breakfast was – as usual – a loud, chaotic affair that made her long for Aunt Petunia’s order. Quickly scarfing down a couple of bacon sandwiches and downing a cup of scalding hot tea, she makes an escape to the garden where she waits for the rest of the household to get their act together.

A full hour after the time they were supposed to leave at according to Mrs. Weasley’s carefully planned schedule, they gather in front of the lopsided fireplace. 

“We’re running low, Arthur.” Mrs. Weasley sighs, taking a flowerpot off the mantelpiece. “We’ll have to buy some more today… Ah well, guests first! After you, Harry dear!” And she offered her brother the pot.

He only looked befuddled. “W-what am I supposed to do?”

“He’s never traveled by Floo powder,” Ron lightly hits his forehead with a palm. “Sorry, Harry, I forgot.”

“Never?” Mr. Weasley repeats with astonishment. “But how did you get to Diagon Alley to buy your school things last year?”

“I went on the Underground –” Harry begins and is immediately interrupted by Mr. Weasley’s eager gasp.

“Really? Were there escapators? How exactly –”

Dahlia disdainfully rolls her eyes. And this is the guy who works at the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.

“Not now, Arthur,” Mrs. Weasley thankfully interjects. “Floo powder’s a lot quicker, dear, but goodness me, if you’ve never used it before… Dahlia, dear, what about you?”

“I know the theory.” She says. “Take a pinch, throw it into the fire, clearly say where you want to go.” 

“Just right.” Mrs. Weasley nods. “Go on first, then.”

Taking a pinch of the offered glittering powder, Dahlia throws it into the fire and with a roar, the flames turned emerald green and briefly rose higher than her head before settling back down. With trepidation, she steps into the fireplace every instinct screaming at her that walking into the fire was a bad idea, recalls half-forgotten advice from the books, and tucks in her elbows. “Diagon Alley!” 

It felt as though she was being sucked down a giant drain. There was a lot of spinning, blurry glimpses of more fireplaces and strange rooms, and she was glad she never had problems with motion sickness. 

She stumbles out onto cobblestone and almost walks face-first into a passing wizard. “Watch where you’re going.” He snaps at her. 

“Sorry,” Dahlia coughs out at his retreating back, throat full of ash. 

This had not been a pleasant experience. People do this regularly?

The fire behind her roars and a twin steps out of the enormous outdoor stone fireplace, soot much more visible in his bright hair than in her own inky strands.

“You made it.” He observes, sour. 

“Unfortunately.” She bites back. 

More roaring flames. 

“You made it.” The next twin also observes in the same tone as his copy.

“Unfortunately.” She bites back again. 

“You made it!” Mr. Weasley was much more cheerful than his sons and actually glad to see her. 

Ginny is next to floo in and she looks around tensely. “Where’s Harry?”

Borgin and Burke, Knockturn Alley, Dahlia knows but makes her face appropriately worried. “What do you mean, where’s Harry? Did he go before you?” 

The flames roar one final time and Mrs. Weasley steps out. “Did Harry make it? I think he might have fumbled a bit on his pronunciation.”

There is a brief panic at the realization that Harry was missing. Dahlia makes a good effort to appear concerned despite itching to go do her own thing by rounding on Mrs. Weasley and declaring angrily that she should have had Harry partner up with someone for his first time. “What about your kids, huh? Did they also have their first experiences with Floo travel alone? It’s a wonder you didn’t lose one or two of them in – I don’t know – Australia!” 

“Let’s go to Gringotts.” Mr. Weasley suggests, sweating. “He might have gone only one grate too far and will be waiting for us there.”

“You better hope so!” Dahlia snarls at him. 

Hey, this was pretty fun!

“Oh, go! Go!” Mrs. Weasley shoos them off and the men sprint away, pushing through the crowd of other back-to-school shoppers. 

Trudging off after them to the imposing snow-white multistoried marble building that towered over the neighboring shops at a more sedate pace, face contorted into a fuming grimace, Dahlia irritably attempts to brush off the soot of her shirt. Giving it up as a bad job, she lifts her head and spots her brother in a huddle of males Weasleys, Hagrid, and Hermione. 

She speeds up.

“Where have you been?!” Grabbing him by the shoulders, she spins Harry around to look him over for injuries. Other than the sooty clothes and the broken glasses, he looked fine. “What happened? Where did you land?” 

“Knockturn,” Hagrid grumbles with displeasure.

“Excellent!” The twins breathe in stereo.

“We’ve never been allowed in,” Ron explains enviously.

“I should ruddy well think not,” Hagrid tells them.

Better not disclose her plans on exploring every nook and cranny of the street when she turned seventeen and could use magic freely.

“Oh, Harry! Oh, my dear! You could have been anywhere…” Mrs. Weasley arrives, huffing and puffing, ghastly handbag – did she know nothing of fashion? – swinging wildly and dragging Ginny behind her. She pulls a brush out of her bag and begins sweeping off the soot from Harry’s clothes.

Meanwhile, Mr. Weasley takes Harry’s glasses, gives them a tap of his wand, and the cracked glass fixes itself. He returns them and Harry puts them back on with a grateful smile.

“Well, gotta be off,” Hagrid says. “See yer at Hogwarts!”

“Bye Hagrid!” The Golden Trio call after the half-giant strides away, towering over everyone in the street.

“You’re flooing with me on the return trip,” Dahlia tells Harry. “Can’t have you getting lost again. We got lucky this time that you weren’t far and Hagrid was there. You realize you could have landed anywhere in the world, right?”

One of the things she had been curious about ever since reading the books was wizarding means of transportation. They had Apparition, Floo, and Portkeys, on top of things like brooms, flying cars, and enchanted buses. She had wondered why they needed so many of them. Why not pick one of the first three and stick with it? They were much quicker and less likely to be noticed by muggles.

The answer was distance.

With distance, the risk of Splinching increases when Apparating. With distance, the greater the chances of stepping out of the wrong fireplace when using the Floo. With distance, the more probable you are to disappear, never to be seen again, when using a Portkey.

Scary stuff. And it was only part of it.

Apparition could be used only when teleporting to places you have already been. It was also quite uncomfortable and could make you sick. Children were not recommended to use this method alone. It was Side-Along Apparition for them until they got their license.

Floo Powder could only be used with fireplaces connected to the Network, which limited it to wizarding areas. It was also not viable for people with heavy accents or speech impediments as Harry had just proved.

Portkeys, like Apparition, could only be made to places you’ve already been to because both methods relied on picturing the location in your mind. Furthermore, they were hard to make, and most never got the hang of it.  A badly made one could fling a wizard halfway across the world or again, have them simply disappear to parts unknown.

Even magic had its drawbacks.

Dahlia stops fretting over her brother only after they walk up the set of white stairs leading up to the burnished bronze doors guarded by goblins in scarlet and gold uniforms, and cross a small entrance hall and a second set of this time silver-colored doors which were inscribed by the famous rhyme: 

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

Forget a warning, this was a straight-up dare from the goblins aimed at thieves to just try and beat their defenses.

Behind the doors was a vast marble hall with long counters stretching along its length with more doors leading off to the vault passageways. Somehow, it always felt inappropriate to disturb the quiet of the room. The sheer grandeur of the place was very intimidating.

They approach a goblin that wasn’t busy scribbling in a large ledger, weighing coins in brass scales, or examining precious stones through eyeglasses and Mrs. Weasley gives a small cough to get his attention. “We’re here to take money out of the Weasley and Potter vaults.”

“Identification?” The small being asks.

Goblins were slightly larger than house-elves. Their fingers and feet were very long and their heads dome-shaped. Their noses and ears were extremely pointed. Their eyes were slanted and their skin fair from the little time they spent outside. Allegedly, they spoke Gobbledegook, but Dahlia rather thought it was an old wizard insult that wizard-kind eventually forgot was an insult and that the goblin language had another, less ridiculous, name. 

“Oh yes, here.” Mrs. Weasley roots through her purse – truly awful – and pulls out a tiny, golden key.

Harry also pulls out his from a pocket and the goblin takes it, examining it closely through eyeglasses. “This one is no longer in use.” He says after a minute.

“Right, sorry.” Dahlia belatedly recalls. Reaching into her own pocket, she pulls out another key. “I found out last year there was a third key floating around.” She explains to a confused Harry. “Without knowing who had it, I thought it prudent to change the locks.”

It was probably in Dumbledore’s possession. According to the bank’s withdrawing statements he hadn’t used it, but still. You don’t give out your credit card information. This was the same principle.

The goblin examines her new key and the Weasleys’ and slides off his stool. “Follow me, please.”

Harry and Ron wave a temporary goodbye to Hermione who was exchanging muggle money at another counter with her parents, and they are led to a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped sharply downwards and there were railway tracks on the floor. With a whistle from the goblin, a little cart train comes hurling towards them. They climb in and Dahlia enjoys the world’s most extreme roller coaster ride.

Plunging deep into the cavernous darkness, they twist and turn over an underground lake where stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor and come to an abrupt stop in front of the Weasley vault.

Mrs. Weasley climbs out of her cart, looking green around the gills, and sweeps the small pile of Sickles and the single Galleon located inside into her purse – such an eyesore. She even feels right into the corners to make sure she got everything. Having been a broke college student once, Dahlia felt a fleeting soul-deep connection to the woman. But only fleeting. There and gone in a second. The sight of the Potter trust vault, filled to the brim with cold, hard cash, quickly cures her off that. And this was the trust vault! Who knows how much more riches there were in the main vault. Goodbye, money problems ~

Hopefully, anyway.

Dahlia couldn’t access the main vault until she came of age, so she didn’t actually know what was inside it. She was fervently praying to gods she didn’t believe in James hadn’t decided to invest the entire famed Potter wealth into the Order of the Burned Chicken and left his children penniless.

She had a backup plan in progress in the muggle world, but it would be so nice not to have to worry about her future economic situation. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would certainly not be supporting her, nor Harry if they ever needed money help after they turned eighteen.

Closing the trust vault’s door after filling her enchanted coin purse, Dahlia passes the key to her brother. “Keep it safe and don’t give it out to anybody, even if you trust them.” She tells him, recalling a couple of instances from canon where the Weasleys got Harry’s money for him and while she was mostly sure they were trustworthy people, it was highly uncomfortable for her to outsiders have access to her bank account. It was all she could do to battle the urge to bar Harry from the vault too. As mature as the boy was for his age, he was still a child with unlimited access to what he thought was an incredibly large amount of money. He didn’t quite realize it was a finite resource, and he could very easily get carried away as Dahlia would have in his place “Changing it again will be expensive.” 

“Don’t you need it too?” Harry asks.

She twirls an identical copy between her fingers. “I had two made.”

Back outside and blinking at the brightness of the sun, they separate; Percy off to get a new quill, Fred and George towards Lee Jordan, Mrs. Weasley and Ginny to a second-hand robe shop, Mr. Weasley taking the Granger couple to the Leaky Cauldron for a drink, the Golden Trio off to get ice cream, and Dahlia to replenish her potion kit.

“We'll all meet at Flourish and Blotts in an hour to buy your schoolbooks.” Mrs. Weasley calls after them. “And not one step down Knockturn Alley!”

Along the way to the apothecary, Dahlia stops by a tiny-looking shop, squished between the much larger Broomstix and Madam Primpernelle’s Beautifying Potions. She had discovered it during her explorations of the wizarding district the summer before her first year and had fallen in love.

A gentle chime of a bell echoes as Dahlia enters the magically enlarged shop, announcing her presence. Sitting in a rocking chair behind a counter, the old proprietress cracks open an eye. “Back again?” She grouses. “Haven’t you better places to be?”

“Hello to you too, Mrs. Shuttleworth,” Dahlia replies pleasantly, looking around.

This was the opposite of Borgin and Burkes. Where that shop was dimly-lit and covered in dust, Mrs. Shuttleworth’s Curious Curios was bright and clean. From the ceiling hung lamps of all shapes and sizes, made of glass, crystal, and metal. The walls were covered in portraits and landscapes, all moving and alive. There were clocks here and there too, each more interesting than the last. Dahlia’s favorite was a dark gothic with a dragon statue sitting on top, watching her warily.

There was barely any space to walk around, the floor taken up by tables, chairs, cabinets, wardrobes, more paintings, grandfather clocks, and even an upright piano and a harp which were quietly playing an improvised piece in accompaniment with a floating violin, a lute, a flute, a clarinet, an oboe, a bassoon, a trumpet, and a trombone.

“Going to buy anything this time, girl? Or are you wasting my time again?” Mrs. Shuttleworth asks and Dahlia looks longingly in the direction of a second room barely visible from behind a curtain of heavy drapes. There, she knew, stood half a dozen mismatched bookshelves bursting with ancient books. Many were centuries old and could not be found in shops such as Flourish and Blotts. They were also too expensive for her to justify the purchase.

Dahlia gives a mental shake of her head. If she didn’t go in there, she wouldn’t know what she was missing. “But you have the most interesting things, Mrs. Shuttleworth. Like this… what is it?”

Lying on a nearby table in a fancy carved wooden box with a velvet inside, it looked similar to a fancy dip pen of black and gold glass. Except wizards didn’t use dip pens.

“That’s a rune wand, girl.” Mrs. Shuttleworth says.

“A rune wand?” Dahlia repeats fascinated. “What is it used for?”

The old woman stands up with difficulty and approaches. “It is a tool for warders, enchanters, and curse-breakers.” She picks the pen up and it softly lights up with an inner light. With a few strokes, a glowing Norse rune was hovering in the air.

“Wow.” Dahlia takes the pen from Mrs. Shuttleworth’s wrinkly hand and the glow winkles out. “Uh…”

“Concentrate.” Mrs. Shuttleworth says snappishly. “It’s no different from a normal wand, girl. The glass is magic conductive, it’s not hard.”

Jerkily, Dahlia sketches a flower, a silly grin lighting up her face at the passable result.

Mrs. Shuttleworth peers at her thoughtfully. “You take Ancient Runes, girl?"

Startled out of her doodling, Dahlia furrows her eyebrows. “Yes? Why?”

“You enjoy it?”

“Languages always fascinated me.” She replies slowly, lowering the pen.

“And your grades?” Mrs. Shuttleworth continues her strange line of questioning.

“Outstanding across the board.”

“Hmph. Wait here.” The old woman disappears into her office on the second floor.

“Okay?”

Dahlia puts the pen back into its box and drums her fingers on her tight, awkwardly standing around. This was weird. Mrs. Shuttleworth had always just rocked in her chair, grumbling about everything, deigning to stand only to ring up purchases.

A crystal songbird sitting on a perch trills a few notes. Chessmen begin a war on their golden chessboard. The clock dragon sneezes out a jet of green flame. Outside the display windows, the Golden Trio passes by, chatting together and licking ice creams. Finally, after five minutes that felt more like fifteen, Mrs. Shuttleworth returns, carrying a dusty old tome with her.

“Half price for the wand and the book.” She says.

Dahlia stares at the outstretched All You Need to Know About Using Runes with perplexity.

Mrs. Shuttleworth exhales harshly. “Look girl, lighting a rune wand on your first try takes skill. I was a runic enchanter back in my day, I would know. Had I been a few decades younger, I would have snapped you right up as an apprentice.”

“But you said it was easy!” Dahlia exclaims.

“I lied.” Right, people did that. She did that and often. “They start you on this after your O.W.L. year at Hogwarts, but it’s the bare basics and nothing else. Anyway, it’s better to start such things early.”

“Why?” Dahlia asks, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Your magic, girl.” Mrs. Shuttleworth sags in exasperation. “When you are young, it’s malleable and eager to be used. That’s why you get accidental magic. As you age, it matures and it becomes used to being focused through a normal wand. By your coming of age, it will fight if you try to use anything else as a focus. The earlier you start using a rune wand, the more time you are giving your magic to get used to being directed through it and the stronger your runes will be later on. Merlin, what are they teaching you at that school nowadays? I fear for the future if you are among the best and brightest of your generation. Two-thirds off.”

“Alright.” Dahlia throws up her hands, though her eyes were betraying her interest. “Alright, I’ll buy them. But don’t expect me to go into any rune-using professions. I don’t know what I want to be yet.”

Mrs. Shuttleworth’s own silvery eyes gleam. “Lovely.”

After the bewildering encounter with Mrs. Shuttleworth, Dahlia rushes to get her potion ingredients and only just makes in time to Flourish and Blotts where a large crowd compromising largely of witches Mrs. Weasley’s age was jostling outside the doors trying to get in. Stretched across the upper windows was the reason, a banner proclaiming that:

GILDEROY LOCKHART

will be signing copies of his autobiography

MAGICAL ME

today 12:30 P.m. to 4:30 P.m.

Dahlia grimaces at it and squeezes into the bookshop with the practice of one used to the chaos of a Black Friday, happily elbowing everyone out off her path. 

Ignoring the line winding to the back of the building where Lockhart was signing his books, she heads to the Charms section in search of a copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4.

“Potter.”

“Hey, Malfoy.” She greets the now sixth-year Prefect. “Shopping for Hogwarts?”

“We would have picked a different day had we known that buffoon would be here today.” The pale blond tells her, handing her the text she was looking for with a charming smile.

Had Dahlia not been a reincarnation and truly been mentally fourteen and as such didn’t find being attracted to literal children more than two decades younger than her icky, this would be the moment where her heart would give a traitorous flutter and she would blush attractively when their fingers graze together slightly as she takes the book. Thankfully, she was a reincarnation and not truly mentally fourteen despite the occasional hormones and as such did find being attracted to literal children more than two decades younger than her icky even if Ambrosius Malfoy was the prettiest man she had ever led her eyes on. Not only he had the usual Malfoy good looks, he also kept his hair long which was a big weakness of Dahlia’s when it came to men. He styled it in this thick over-the-shoulder braid that dangled all the way down to the top of his hip and that never failed to make her want to get her hands on it. She bet it was silky soft… Damn pureblood etiquette, she’d have to marry the guy to do that. Plus, he had a better personality than most of their House put together and he’d never been mean to her and had actually helped her get out of a few tight spots back in her first year and he was sixteen.

Ugh, she was suffering here.

“Thanks. Not a fan?” Crouching down, Dahlia browses through the lower shelves and tries not to think about the earrings dangling from Malfoy’s ears. Pale whitish chalcedony – if she’s not mistaken – stones cut as teardrops on silver chains, this time. Is he doing this on purpose? Does he know she likes men with earrings? He’s got a girlfriend already, doesn’t he? Did they break up? Fucking hormones. Remember girl, two decades younger.

Dahlia’s unknowing tormentor leans on the bookshelf beside her. “He’s a peacock. And that’s coming from someone whose family owns several of them.”

She glances up, a teasing smile tugging at her lips. “All albinos too.”

There is a theatrical groan from her upperclassman. “Horrible, horrible creatures. Pretty, but have you ever heard them yell? Get them properly started and there won’t be any peace and quiet for hours.”

Dahlia laughs and stands up, deciding there wasn’t anything worth buying.

“Now, who’s this?” Malfoy the Older drawls, looking behind her. “Harry Potter and his little lion friends. Come to save your sister from the big bad snake?”

“Oh, hello Harry.” She smiles at her brother. “I don’t need any saving, thank you. This is Ambrosius Malfoy.”

“Malfoy?” Ron mutters distrustfully.

“A cousin of the main branch.” Malfoy the Older smirks thinly.

Dahlia pulls out two copies of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 from the shelf and dumps them in Harry’s arms. Ron was no doubt getting his own second-hand from his elder brothers, so only Hermione and Harry needed new ones. “Come on, we still have to brave the horde of love-sick fangirls.”

Malfoy the Older lifts her purchases off the ground where she had put them as pureblood etiquette dictated men shouldn’t let women carry anything if they can do it for them, and together, they snuck up the line to where the rest of the Weasley family was standing with the adult Grangers.

“Oh, there you are, good.” Mrs. Weasley says breathlessly. She kept patting her hair. “We’ll be able to see him in a minute...”

Dahlia has never understood people who hyper fixated on celebrities.

It is not the real Gilderoy Lockhart that they see first, but his enlarged photographs that were all winking and flashing dazzlingly white teeth at the crowd. The man himself is seen two minutes later seated at a table. He was wearing robes of forget-me-not blue that matched his eyes and his pointed wizard’s hat was crooked on his wavy hair. He did not look one bit like a man who has defeated a werewolf, traveled with trolls, or spent a year with yeti.

A short, irritable-looking man was dancing around taking photographs with a large black camera that emitted puffs of purple smoke with every blinding flash. “Out of the way, there,” He snarled at Ron, moving back to get a better shot, and stepped on the Weasley’s foot. “This is for the Daily Prophet —”

“Big deal,” Ron says angrily. And loudly.

Gilderoy Lockhart hears him. He looks up. He saw Ron and then he must have seen Harry because his eyes widened perceptibly. He stared.

“Oh, boy.” Dahlia sing-songs under her breath.

“It can’t be! Harry Potter?!” The man exclaims, leaping to his feet.

Whispering excitedly, the crowd parts allowing Lockhart to dive forward, seize Harry by the arm, and pull him to the front.

The crowd bursts into applause and Harry’s face becomes tomato red.

Under the cover of the thick smoke the photographer’s camera was producing, Dahlia slinks behind Malfoy the Older’s wide back. She’d like to help Harry. She really did. But she was not risking getting dragged into that catastrophe. She’d been hounded by reporters exactly once already for news about Harry before he had started Hogwarts and had been missing from the Wizarding World, and that once had been enough.

Harry tries to sidle back over to the Weasleys, but Lockhart throws an arm around his shoulders and draws him tight to his side. “Ladies and gentlemen,” He declares grandly, waving for quiet. “what an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I’ve been sitting on for some time! When young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography – which I shall be happy to present him now, free of charge.” The crowd applauds again.

Dahlia wants to gag. Whatever else, the faker was good at showmanship.

“He had no idea,” Lockhart continues, giving Harry a little shake that made his glasses slip to the end of his nose. “that he would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, Magical Me. He and his schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!”

“Joy, another year of substandard education.” Malfoy the Older murmurs into Dahlia’s ear.

“Tell me about it.” She mutters back.

The crowd cheered and clapped while Harry was presented with the entire works of Gilderoy Lockhart. Staggering under their weight, he finally manages to flee the limelight and back to their little group.

“You have these,” Harry tells Ginny, tipping the lot into her new second-hand cauldron. “I’ll buy my own.”

“Bet you loved that, didn’t you, Potter?” Malfoy the Younger snickers, descending from the second floor. “Famous Harry Potter, can’t even go into a bookshop without making the front page.”

“Draco.” Malfoy the Older says warningly. “Not in public.” 

“Are you ready?” Mr. Weasley struggles over to them with the twins, their arms full of the books they had gone to get. “We’re leaving soon.”

“Well, well, well, Arthur Weasley.”

“Uncle.” Malfoy the Older says.

“Lord Malfoy.” Dahlia ducks her head in greeting and is rewarded with a noticeably less cool look from the approaching man than the one the Weasleys had received. She must have left him with a favorable impression after attending his family’s Winter ball a couple of times.

“Lucius.” Mr. Weasley nods with a barely concealed grimace.

“Busy time at the Ministry, I hear.” Malfoy the Eldest? the Senior? shares. “All those raids… I hope they’re paying you overtime?” He reaches into Ginny’s cauldron and extracts from amid the new Lockhart books, a copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration that was almost falling apart in his gloved hand. “Obviously not. Dear me, what’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don’t even pay you well for it?”

Mr. Weasley flushes darker than Harry had on stage. “We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy.”

Cold eyes flicker to Mr. and Mrs. Granger. “Clearly. The company you keep, Weasley… and I thought your family could sink no lower –”

There is a crash as the haughty man tumbles into a bookshelf and Dahlia gasps, hand fluttering to cover her mouth. She was aware Lucius Malfoy was supposed to slip Ginny the diary in this scene but there was nothing about a barehanded brawl in her notebook!

“Get him, Dad!” A twin yells.

“No, Arthur, no!” Mrs. Weasley shrieks.

The crowd hurries away from the fighting pair, knocking more shelves over in their haste. Malfoy the Older grabs Dahlia by the shoulder and jerks her out of the way of the dozens of heavy books falling on them.

“What are you doing?!” She finds her voice. “Mr. Weasley! Mr. Weasley, let him go! You’re an adult! You can’t go around throwing yourself at people for insulting you! You walk away calmly! Think of the example you’re setting for your children!”

“Say the girl who curses people for being the butt of a friendly joke!” The other twin retorts.

She gets in his face. George and Fred weren’t that much taller than her. “I’m not an adult. And there nothing friendly about your jokes, brother-fucker!”

“What?!” Mrs. Weasley screeches louder.

“It’s a rumor! A rumor you’ve spread! We would never!”

Malfoy the Older laughs derisively. “And how are you going to prove it?”

“Please! Please!” A Flourish and Blotts employee cries nearby.

Hagrid rounds a bookshelf and grabs Mr. Weasley and Malfoy the Lord? The Death Eater? by the back of their robes, forcibly forcing them apart. “Break it up, there, gents, break it up. You too, kids.”

Unwillingly, they step away from each other. Dahlia flips her hair over her shoulder with an angry humph.

Mrs. Weasley dabs at her husband’s split lip with a handkerchief. “What, by the great Merlin, possessed you?”

“I’m sorry, dear. It won’t happen again.” The man reassures her.

“Well, I sure hope not!”

Malfoy the – Lord. There. Lord Malfoy was still holding Ginny’s Transfiguration book and he thrust it at her. “Here, girl, take your book. It’s the best your father can give you. Draco, Ambrosius, come.”

Malfoy the Older hands over her purchases. “I don’t know what you’re doing with the Weasleys, but if you need rescuing send me an owl.”

“I will.” She half-seriously promises.

The Malfoys sweep out of the shop.

“Yeh should’ve ignored him, Arthur.” Hagrid rebukes the man. “Rotten ter the core, the whole family, everyone knows that. No Malfoy’s worth listenin’ ter. Bad blood, that’s what it is –”

“The Malfoys have been nothing but nice to me.” Dahlia interrupts icily. “It takes two to tango.”

Nose in the air, she stomps away from the Weasleys to go pay for her books, mood ruined for the rest of the day.

The Malfoys were unapologetic bigots and corrupt, she wouldn’t argue that. She didn’t know about Narcissa or Ambrosius’ parents, but Lucius had hurt and killed people. Even if he loved his wife and son – Draco was very obviously spoiled and not only by his mother, so there was none of that Lucius is an abuser shit that the Harry Potter fandom had invented – it didn’t change the fact Mr. Malfoy was a murder.

Still, whatever their faults, the Malfoys had been polite to her. They had welcomed her into their home during one of their most sacred celebrations despite being the sister of the ‘killer’ of their leader.

Alright, yes, the Weasleys had invited her into their home no questions asked too, but they were the good guys. They were supposed to do that. She hadn’t expected them to do anything else. The Malfoys? That first ball, she had been a hundred percent certain they’d throw her out on her ass the second she stepped foot past their fancy iron-wrought gates. They didn’t.

It left Dahlia… conflicted.

She didn’t want to feel that Mr. Weasley was in the greater wrong for the Flourish and Blotts incident, but she did. Lord Malfoy may have started it, but he had escalated it. Call her a hypocrite because in his place she wouldn’t have calmly walked away either, but she also had the brain of a teenager despite having the mind of an adult. She couldn’t always help her poor impulse control and her temper. Mr. Weasley could.

That night, Dahlia lies on her camp bed, unable to fall asleep. The gentle pitter-patter of the raindrops against the window, normally so soothing only annoyed her further. Ginny’s soft and generally easy to ignore snores made her clamp her pillow around her head to block them out. One question plagued her restless thoughts; what kind of person liked the villains better than the heroes?

Chapter Text

The last weeks of the summer holidays were tense. If Dahlia had tried to avoid most of Weasleys before, then she was practically sleeping outside now.

Percy and Mr. Weasley were the only ones she could stand. Percy because contrary to when they were at Hogwarts and he was acting as the Perfect Prefect, at the Burrow, he remained holed up in his room doing whatever and she saw him only at mealtimes. Mr. Weasley because he was gone for most of the day too, working at the Ministry.

She might have been able to stand Ginny if it hadn’t been for the way she was spending so much time scribbling in her new diary. Personality-wise, the little girl hadn’t yet grown into the spitfire Harry would fall in love with in the future.  She was shy and kept to herself. She was polite. It was just that unceasing scribbling in the cursed damned Horcrux that acted on Dahlia’s nerves. She kept itching to get it away from the youngest Weasley, but she currently had no way of getting rid of it, unless she wanted to risk Fiendfyre. Which she didn’t because she’d surely lose control of the notoriously uncontrollable fire, burn down the entire building, and be sent to Azkaban for using Dark magic. Stealing it wouldn’t work either, because she had nowhere to store it where it wouldn’t be found when Ginny inevitably complained about having her new best friend stolen. Unfortunately, as a Slytherin, Dahlia would have been the prime suspect after the twins.

Mrs. Weasley, regardless of all of Dahlia’s insistence that she had not been the one to spread the rumors about the twins fucking each other – she invented it, Avery did the rest of the work, there’s a difference – cooled considerably towards her. On the bright side, there was no more motherly fussing. On the other, the twins weren’t scolded as harshly as she would have preferred when they were caught trying to break into her trunk yet again.

And the twins… oh, the twins… how she wanted to turn them into mice and set a cat on them. The temporary truce was most definitely over. They were back to waging constant war on her and they had a massive advantage in the form of their prank items. They also knew the area better than her. Diggory was a life saver who happily welcomed her into his house where she was temporarily safe.

Harry tried not to get involved. She didn’t blame him. He was already starting to see the Weasleys as his surrogate family and their relationship has only just begun repairing. Other than their shared blood, he had no reason to stick with her. He did get Ron to stay on the sidelines so that was something, thought the redhead did nothing to disguise the fact he disliked her. There were a lot of disgruntled glares thrown at her over the kitchen table.

Dahlia wasn’t certain where Ron’s dislike for her came from. It could have been the Quidditch incident from the previous year. Or it could have been simply because she was a Slytherin and had picked up some pureblood-esque mannerism from her Housemates over the years. Harry could have also told him something he hadn’t liked about her. He did seem to puff up protectively when she was around her little brother. She didn’t mind. It was nice to see Harry had such excellent friends. They’ll keep him safe when she couldn’t.

August 31th couldn’t come quickly enough for her. That evening, Mrs. Weasley cooks up an enormous farewell feast that included all of Harry’s favorite things and ended with a treacle pudding. It was good. Very British, but good.

She missed butter tarts. And panna cotta. And macarons. And curry. And gazpachos. And –

She’s tired of British food, okay?  

Dahlia tries to console herself over a plate with a noticeably smaller portion of pudding than Harry’s – Mrs. Weasley was not subtle when disliking someone; Easter chocolate eggs anyone? – with the fact that she’d be back at Hogwarts the next day. And with Hogwarts came a whole host of house-elves willing to do her every bidding. Including cooking her the most delicious of meals.

Souring further, Dahlia despondently pokes at her pudding with her spoon. Truthfully, she saw the use of house-elves as slavery. There always was a small ball of guilt swirling inside her stomach whenever she visited the kitchens at Hogwarts and asked the house-elves to prepare food exclusively for her. She never asked for more than she needed and she attempted to repay them in her own way by bringing them cookbooks as gifts, but she continued to feel as if she was taking advantage of them.

She had plans for Hermione’s future S.P.EW. aka the Society for Promotion of Elvish Welfare. The intentions were good. Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status? Dahlia was all for that. Unfortunately, Hermione had gone about it all wrong. Badgering people into joining her organization, having them pay for it, and alienating the entirety of the Hogwarts house-elf population by leaving her self-knitted hats and socks to be picked up by some unsuspecting elf who didn’t want to be freed while cleaning the room? It was never going to work, honey.

And well, the girl was being dangerously condescending too. She had essentially decided that she herself knew what was best for them. She had seen a sentient people who was being enslaved and abused and didn’t see that they honestly were happiest when they worked. She tried to trick them into freeing themselves when they saw freedom as the worst thing that could ever occur to them. 

Before offering them freedom, the elves had to want it. What canon Hermione should have done was focus on those that were being neglected and ill-treated and abandoned like Dobby and Winky. She should also have started by getting elves to be treated humanely by their families. Only after they had sick leave and pay, could take vacations and retire with a pension and all that, should have Hermione even begun seriously talking about their freedom.

It would take years, yes. Years and years of hard work. Hermione would have to figure out what the house-elves would do after they were freed and were permitted to leave their former families. She’d have to find them other jobs and places to live and god knows what else. Having said that, if there was anyone who could get it done in spite of all the hardships and obstacles they would face, Dahlia was certain Hermione was the person who had the potential to become Britain’s second muggle-born Minister of Magic.

On the 1st of September, Mrs. Weasley wakes them at dawn. Dahlia falls back asleep in the living room waiting for everyone else while the rest of the household rushes about like headless chickens because no one had bothered acting sensibly and had left everything for the morning off. In her last life, whenever she went on vacation, Dahlia had started the process of packing her bags up to a week or two before leaving and finished the night before. That habit had carried on into this life, and as a result, she rarely forgot anything.

By the time nine people and seven large trunks, plus two normal owls and a man in the form of a rat pile into the deceptively small-looking from the outside Ford Angelica, the sun is high in the sky.

Technically, the law prohibited the enchantment of a muggle item with the intent to use it for purposes other than for what it was designed, so the difficult expansion charm Mr. Weasley had managed to cast on the car without his wife noticing it was probably border-line legal if he took it off right after, but the charms that allowed the Ford to fly definitely weren’t. You’d think the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office would know better.

Dahlia sits down by the door and has Harry sit on the other side of her to separate her from the Weasleys. Mrs. Weasley settles down on the park bench big passenger seat with Ginny and glances back at them. “Muggles do know more than we give them credit for, don’t they?” She says. “I mean, you’d never know it was this roomy from the outside, would you?”

There was a lot Dahlia could stay to that comment, beginning with Mrs. Weasley admitting to thinking muggles were stupid and still considering herself not a bigot, but she stays quiet. She didn’t have the energy to argue about this, this early in the morning. But really. Muggle knows more than wizards give them credit for? Wizards don’t even know basic science! Wizards who didn’t take Arithmancy in school rarely knew anything beyond the simplest math operations. As in, addition and subtraction. She knew several older Slytherins who could barely multiply or divide.

And their history! God, their history! She had once spent several evenings explaining to Kyle the Big Bang, and Pangea, and the Cambrian explosion, and the theory of evolution, and the dinosaurs, and the Ice Age… It was a painful talk. She had shattered Kyle’s reality into tiny, irreparable pieces. Nowadays, she was his personal supplier of muggle educational books and he had made it his business to properly educate the rest of his House. Muggle-born Ravenclaws had been very amused.

So yes, muggles know more than wizards give them credit for.

Actually, let her rephrase that; muggles know more than wizards, period. If it’s anyone who’s stupid, it’s the ones who are stuck living as if the Middle Ages hadn’t ended centuries ago. Thank fuck wizards at the very least didn’t think the Earth was flat nor the center of the universe. That was something.

The engine starts up and they begin moving. Harry stares longingly back at the Burrow. Two seconds after leaving the yard, they were back again – George had left his box of Filibuster fireworks behind. Seven minutes after that, Fred ran back into the house for his broomstick. They reach the highway… and Ginny gasps about her forgotten diary. Dahlia grimaces at her reflection and wonders how the hell she was going to resist the urge to meddle with the plot for another six years when already she could barely prevent herself from ripping the Horcrux to shreds and throwing the scraps out the window to be scattered by the wind.

They reach King Cross at a quarter to eleven. They were extremely late.

Mr. Weasley runs across the road to get trolleys for their trunks and they all hurried to the station through the crowd of other, muggle, commuters who were looking with askance at their brooms and caged owls. They approach the magical barrier dividing platforms nine and ten, and Mrs. Weasley sends Percy through it first, nervously eyeing the clock overhead. They had five more minutes until the Hogwarts Express left.

Mr. Weasley went next, followed by the twins. Mrs. Weasley went with Ginny and Dahlia waves at the two remaining boys to go before her. They wheel their trolleys to face the barrier, bend low over the handles and take off at full speed.

Dahlia leans on her trolley’s handle on crossed arms and watches with slight amusement as just as she expected, the solid-looking brick wall becomes truly impassable and the male two-thirds of the Golden Trio bounce back with a loud crash.

“What in the blazes d’you think you’re doing?” A nearby guard yells.

“Lost control of the trolley!” Harry calls back, clutching at his ribs, while Ron runs to pick up Hedwig’s fallen over cage. The poor owl was shrieking up a storm and several watching commuters mutter to their companions about animal abuse. 

Dahlia straitens and wheels over to the barrier. She raps on it with the back of her knuckles. Solid stone. Excellent job, Dobby. “Strange. This never happened before.”

“What are we going to do?” Ron despairs. “We’re going to miss the train.”

Dahlia shrugs. “We already did.”

It was a minute after eleven. The train had just left the platform.

“Oh.” Harry whispers, defeated.

“What if Mum and Dad can’t get through?” Ron frets.

“They’ll Apparate,” Dahlia tells him evenly. “Calm down, we’ll wait for them by the car.”

“The car!” Ron exclaims, eyes gleaming.

And this was where he gets the brilliant idea of flying to school. Great.

“What about it?” Harry asks.

“We’re stuck, right?” Ran says. “And we’ve got to get to school, haven’t we? Underage wizards are allowed to use magic if it’s a real emergency, section nineteen or something of the Restriction of Thingy –”

“But your mum and dad…” Harry worries, still pushing against the barrier in the vain hope they’ll pass through it. “How will they get home?”

“Your sister’s right,” Ron explains impatiently. “they can Apparate! That means they can just vanish and reappear at home! They only bother with Floo powder and the car because we’re all underage and we’re not allowed to Apparate yet.”

Dahlia watches as Harry’s look of panic melts away to be replaced by excitement. “Can you fly it?”

“No problem,” Ron says, already wheeling his trolley around to face the exit. “C’mon, let’s go. If we hurry we’ll be able to follow the Hogwarts Express –”

“Yeah, no. Absolutely not.” Dahlia ruthlessly cuts through their animated chatter.

“What?” Harry exclaims.

“Why not?” Ron complains. “We need to get to Hogwarts, don’t we?”

“And we will.” Don’t roll your eyes, Dahlia. “You didn’t really think the Hogwarts Express is the only way to get there, did you?” Judging by their expressions, they did. “Students living in Scotland aren’t going to go all the way to London, only to immediately return.” She says, exasperated. “Especially not the muggle-born with muggle parents who can’t instantaneously travel from one place to another. The Hogwarts Express is traditional but hardly mandatory.”

She leads them back to the car where she has Ron unlock the trunk with a series of taps from his wand and heaves their luggage inside. Then, she has them climb inside.

The frazzled adult Weasleys find her fifteen minutes later, leaning against the Ford Angela, arms and legs crossed, head tipped back, watching the cloudy sky. The boys had long since settled but kept shooting her unhappy glances.  

“Dahlia, dear!” Mrs. Weasley cries, hurrying towards her. “What happened?”

“The barrier malfunctioned.” She tells her. “We couldn’t get through.”

“That’s never happened before.” Mr. Weasley protests.

“Well, it did. And your son thought it would be a brilliant idea to steal the car and fly to Hogwarts, instead of waiting for you.” She shamelessly tattletales. Maybe if she’s lucky, those two lion idiots will learn how to think before acting. Didn’t Harry fall out of the car in the movie while they were flying? They definitely got almost clobbered by the Whomping Willow, that she remembered clearly. It’s a wonder they didn’t get themselves killed in canon with the type of reckless stuff they regularly pulled. She’s going to go grey from worry and stress before she hits her twenties for the second time.

“Ronald!” Behind the window’s glass, Ron’s face pales.

Mrs. Weasley lectures the boys the entire drive back to the Burrow.

All You Need to Know About Using Runes was difficult. It would take her years to go through it and understand what she was reading. The language was outdated and the subject complex. Each runic language had its own rules and what worked for one might not work for another. There was a lot of math involved in practically every single step. At Dahlia’s level, even the simplest runic single-layer sequence might take her hours to complete.

Damn was it interesting.

Unlike normal spells that degraded and weakened with time, correctly written down runes could last indefinitely. That is why the most powerful and ancient of wards were runic based. Runes could also be used to enchant devices. They are what make Pensieves work, for example. Just reading about it, Dahlia had so many ideas. Imagine the possibilities! A protective amulet against mindreading or against the Imperius. A compass that pointed not north, but at her heart’s desire… Mental note, look into the history of the Caribbean next summer. Disney and Amber Heard may have ruined everyone’s chances at seeing Johnny Depp in more Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but Dahlia was certain they would have eventually seen the legendary pirate succeeding in his goal and becoming immortal had he not been fired. Captain Jack Sparrow could very well be running around in this day and age hale and hearty, and Dahlia was interested in seeing what one of her most favorite characters ever would be like in real life.

Maybe Harry surviving the Killing Curse was the result of a runic ward. Dahlia had never really believed that love hogwash Dumbledore had tried to sell. Lily could hardly be the first witch to sacrifice her life for her baby. How many of those babies still died, despite their mothers’ deaths? A runic ward powered by a willingly given life made much more sense. Lily had supposedly been smart. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility for her to concoct a backup plan in case the Fidelius failed.   

Oh!

What an incredible idea!

It would take time. A lot of time. And it would be difficult with many failed attempts. But if Dahlia managed to do it… Where could she get a golden ring?  

“Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be gold.” She mutters to herself. “Gold doesn’t suit me anyway. As long as it is a simple band it’ll do. Even if any other metal isn’t true to the text.”

Letting the book fall forward on her chest, Dahlia closes her eyes with a small, contented smile spreading across her face. Humming a half-forgotten song that wouldn’t be written for a few more years yet, she lounges in the soft grass, bare feet dipped in clear water.

Because the teachers at Hogwarts didn’t want students running around the school before the Welcoming Feast, anyone who preferred to floo in rather than take the Hogwarts Express was asked to arrive in the evening. Ergo, Dahlia had to spend one additional very much unwanted day at the Burrow, and though for once the place was unusually quiet and peaceful being almost entirely emptied of people, she had all the same decided to go to that little creek she had discovered earlier in the summer.

Slowly, the pleasant weather lulls her into a nearly dozing state. Birds chirp songs in the branches of the surrounding trees. Leaves softly rustle in the breeze. The creek gently gurgles and warm sun rays dance across her skin.

Heaven.

This was heaven.

“Hello.”

Dahlia’s eyes snap open and she scowls at the clear sky. There went the mood.

“You look comfortable.” The dreamy-sounding voice continues, oblivious.

Dahlia turns her head to observe the interrupter of her peace. Young, with long, disheveled, dirty blond hair and large silvery eyes. She was dressed in overly bright pink robes and no shoes. On her head precariously perched a crown of weeds.

“Shouldn’t you be on the train?” Dahlia asks tiredly. “Firsties are usually expected to take it rather than floo in. Something about making friends before House colors and prejudice came into play.”
Luna Lovegood smiles, gaze hazy. “I was going to, but then the Grookles told me I should visit the creek after lunch.”

“The Grookles, sure.” Dahlia agrees, deadpan.

“I’m Luna Lovegood. I live nearby with my daddy. He’s the editor of The Quibbler magazine.” Luna introduces herself.
Dahlia sighs and pushes herself up. “I’ve heard of it.”

Luna approaches and sits down beside her, also dipping her feet into the water. “You’re Dahlia Potter, Harry Potter’s sister, aren’t you?”

“I am. If you want to meet Harry he’s at the Burrow. I can introduce you.”

“Thank you, but the Grookles say it isn’t time for us to meet yet.”

Dahlia meticulously groomed eyebrow ticks up. “And do you often listen to the Grookles?”

The other girl cheerfully nods, distracted by a pretty butterfly. “Always. They’re never wrong.”

“Ah.” Dahlia non-committedly says. Man, this girl was loony. “What if they told you to jump off a bridge?”

Luna shrugs. “I’d do it because they’d have a good reason for it. They’re my friends, they wouldn’t tell me to do anything that would hurt me for no reason.”

How naïve, Dahlia thinks with a mental scoff.

“What are you reading?”

“A book on Runes.” Dahlia answers, tilting the book to show Luna the scuffed leather cover with its cursive, faded golden lettering.

“Is it interesting?”

“Very,” Dahlia tells her seriously.

Luna turns her head to stare at a bare patch of grass. “The Grookles say you should keep the book with you always. They say it is important you don’t leave it behind when the wardrobe malfunctions.”

A beat. “What wardrobe.”

In a flash of green light, Dahlia steps out of the fireplace and into the cobblestone road of Hogsmeade. Harry and Ron were already there, having their trunks unshrunk by Professor Flitwick.

This was an isolated plaza of the picturesque wizarding village of cottages and shops located within walking distance from Hogwarts. Built around it in a circle were several imposing fireplaces from which more students appeared every few minutes in great swirls of flame.

“Potter!” A girl calls out, a light Italian accent coloring her words. “Unusual to see you here. Don’t you take the train?”

“There was a change of plans.” Dahlia smiles back at Zabini.

The two of them place their trunks by the pile of others to be later collected by house-elves and quietly chatting, they climb into a carriage waiting at the edge of the village. Ron and Harry join them, along with Blaise, Zabini’s cousin and a Slytherin in Harry’s and Ron’s year. The two Gryffindors sit awkwardly in silence as the creepy as ever Thestrals takes the carriage up the bumpy road to Hogwarts while Zabini the Younger lounges in the corner cat-like and eyes them amusedly.

Zabini was sharing summer news when she hesitates. Dahlia is instantly suspicious. “Correctly me if I’m wrong, but there was this new rumor I heard from Avery and she said you were there… Did Arthur Weasley attack Lucius Malfoy with his bare hands like a muggle in the middle of Flourish and Blotts?”

She scowls at the mere memory. “He did. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.”

“Malfoy insulted Dad first!” Ron interrupts hotly.

“And your father is a grown adult.” Dahlia turns towards the boys. “Grown adults don’t react to insults by slugging people in the face. They calmly walk away. Your father was behaving himself like a child.”

Ron reddens in anger and starts sulking. Harry looks even more awkward. Zabini the Younger snickers.

It was darkening. In the distance a train whistle sounded; the Express.

Hogwarts comes in to view as impressive as ever and not quite a thousand years old. Castles didn’t get to Scotland until the 1100s after the Normans had invaded England in 1066. They were also modest stone keeps with wooden fences at the time. The school, as described in the books or shown in the movies or as Dahlia was seeing it now, couldn't have existed until, at the minimum, the end of the thirteenth century. That’s a couple of hundred years after Hogwarts was presumably established. While it was possible the Founders had copied designs from the Continent, it is far more probable they had begun with a small building and maybe a dozen students if that. As tales of their school spread and more students came, they would have gradually expanded, but Hogwarts wouldn’t have reached its current scale for many more decades. During their time, it was far more common for parents to teach their children, or for masters to take apprentices. Most Muggle-born were left to fend for themselves, and frankly, Dahlia somewhat agreed with Salazar Slytherin’s alleged views that muggle-borns had no place at Hogwarts at the time.  

Consider this. You grow up believing magic is the working of the Devil and magic users were his servants who were routinely hunted down to be burned at the stake, hanged, or drowned. You discover you can use magic; how do you react?

With great horror, Dahlia would imagine.

If you manage to not be found out by your family/friends/neighbours/whoever and be killed for consorting with demons, you are taken by some other damned magic-user to an entire school filled to the brim by heretic pagans! To make matters worse, you may now no longer be able to return home because a) you disappeared without trace, b) you staged your death, or c) you explained to your family of proper God-fearing peasants why you were being taken away to be given an education of all things. Everyone knows only nobles and the very rich get educations. What does a poor farmer need for an education? How would he pay for it?

With your family either thinking you are dead or looking for ways to cleanse your immortal soul of the foul touch of the Devil even if it meant your death if they don’t outright try to murder you, the teachers at this school begin endeavoring to convince you magic is good. They might tell you God isn’t real and attempt converting you to their paganism. Do you believe them? Of course not! Those were obviously lies invented by Satan and you will not fall for the trap. There must be a way for you to save yourself. You must show God you are still His faithful servant. And if you by some perchance find yourself a friend… you start thinking how you can them too. 

Dahlia had been appalled doing her summer holiday History of Magic homework before her Third Year on witch-hunts. The title of the assigned essay had been Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless. She had to write about accounts of witches resisting burning by using the Flame-Freezing Charm and Wendelin the Weird who was famous for being burnt at the stake no less than forty-seven times in various disguises. Imagine that! Forty-seven times! What fun she must have had. The textbook Dahlia was using as a reference, Bathilda Bagshot’s A History of Magic, largely considered the authority on the subject, made no mention of the thousands of innocent muggle women who were accused of being witches and had no handy dandy magical escape plan. Nor did she mention the magical children who could not escape for they had no wand. Neither were there mentions of the muggle-born who lead mobs of torch-carrying muggles to the doorsteps of true magic-users in their attempt to seek forgiveness from God for using magic. Before the Muggle-Repelling Charm was added to the wards, the teachers had resorted to having their muggle-born students swear magical vows to never reveal Hogwarts location to anyone in an effort to prevent such an incident from happening to them. Hogwarts and Hogsmeade were still besieged multiple times and in the school itself, students were being murdered by fanatic muggle-born as lately as 1892. On that particular occasion, the muggle-born in question had thought he had been saving his lover from an eternity in Hell.

“Potter?”

“Oh, sorry.” Dahlia turns towards Zabini. “Got lost in thoughts.” She steps out of the stopped carriage and hurries after the boys into the castle.    

They are among the first in the Great Hall, but the students who took the train weren’t far behind and soon the massive room was being filled with noise.

James arrives in the company of the part of the Slytherin Quidditch gang that was in their year; Pucey, Warrington, Bletchley, and Montague. Burke was a step behind them, deep in conversation with big-chested Moon.

Her best friend had grown taller over the summer and towered an inch or two over everyone else. His skin was no longer English pasty white, and his riot of dark auburn curls were sun-bleached and pulled into a small tail. There was a new scar cutting through his right eyebrow. “Where have you been?” He exclaims, collapsing on the bench beside her. “Weren’t we supposed to meet on the platform?”

“There was an incident.” She says. “I had to use the Floo. How was Congo?”

“It was great! I got to work with Erumpets. I want to go back next summer hols.” James’ forcibly jolly tone changes. “Give it up, what happened?” 

Dahlia sighs, but explains, suppressing a fond smile. “I think it’s the work of this one house-elf.” She finishes with. “He spent the summer stealing Harry’s mail in an attempt to keep him from coming back to Hogwarts.”

“Why?” Warrington bemusedly asks, having been listening in.

“Apparently, there will be a great danger here this year, so do try to be careful all of you.” Dahlia rolls her eyes as if mocking Dobby.

“Danger? What kind of danger?” Pansy Parkinson passing by behind them overhears. “If it’s another teacher possessed by some Dark spirit, my parents will be campaigning to have Dumbledore sacked for endangering students. It’s a wonder he hadn’t been yet, what with the Acromantulas and the Cerberus the Gryffindors were saying he was keeping on the third-floor last year.”

“Dark spirit? I thought – OW!”

Dahlia removes her heel from James’ toes with a significant glance. The official story was that Quirrell had been possessed by a random Dark spirit. Other than the teachers, only she, James, Ava, and Kyle knew otherwise because when she had told them she’d been a little high on potions and a little loose-lipped.

James winces but nods discreetly in understanding.  

The Sorting begins.

“Is it just me, or is this truly taking longer than usual?” Pucey wonders a few minutes later.

“It’s the post-war baby boom,” Dahlia says clapping politely as a branch family Gamp sits down at their table. At this rate, Slytherin might actually get enough new snakelets to actually fill two dorm rooms per gender instead of the one.

“The what?” Montague asks.

“War tends to have people delay marriage and having children.” She explains. “I’ll bet a lot of those half-blood and pure-blood firsties were born after the Dark Lord was defeated. Muggles call that sudden surge in population a baby boom. Also, Death Eaters went around killing not just muggles, you know?  For all his talk about preserving magical blood, the Dark Lord spilled a whole lot of it. Early in the war, it was just individual people disappearing. Later on? Entire families. It’s why there’s so few of us in our and other upper years.”   

“Death Eaters killed babies?” Moon whispers, large brown eyes filled with dismay.

“Oh, yes.” Zabini delightedly confirms. Her family were neutrals, and she had no qualms speaking against either of the other sides. “And of those families they exterminated? Quite a few pure-blood. Of the Prewetts, for example, remains but Molly Weasley. Unless a son of hers claims the Lordship, that’s the end of a Sacred Twenty-Eight family.”

Dahlia spots Kyle at the Ravenclaw table and wiggles her fingers at him. He gravely inclines his head in response. Luna takes a seat opposite him and strikes up a conversation. Dahlia hides a giggle behind a raised hand at Kyle’s slowly growing disbelief. His confused face was hilarious. She felt him. The other girl had refused to expand on her comment on the wardrobe, and hours later Dahlia remained perplexed. For some weird reason, her brain refused to forget the remark, despite it likely being complete nonsense.

“I’ve never realized… I mean, I knew they killed… but I never actually realize what it means…” Bletchley looks sick. “They might have been blood-traitors…”

“It’s magical blood, no matter their beliefs.” James shakes his head. “There’s little enough of it as it is.”

“The children at least might have still been taught, even if it was too late for their parents.” Moon murmurs.

“There are magical orphanages?” Dahlia asks, surprised. Somehow, she’d been under the impression there weren’t any. “Or are you talking about fostering? Not adoption surely.” Death Eaters adopting the children of blood-traitors! What a laugh. Especially if the purity of their blood had already been tainted a generation or two ago.

“Fostering, I suppose?” Moon answers. “Orphanages are for the poor without family willing to take them in. I hear they’re dreadful places with squib caretakers. They can’t be learning anything substantial there.”

“I’ve been to the one in Cornwall. It was one of Mother’s charity fancies.” Montague recalls. “You’re not wrong, Moon. Only muggles must be living in worse hovels. There was this one caretaker who I’m rather certain was part hag –”

“No!” Several exclaim in shock.

“Yes, yes, a hag!” Montague confirms. “And several of the children were werewolves!”

“I don’t believe it!” Pucey says. “The Ministry would never let werewolves near defenceless children.”

“Don’t worry, the werewolves were locked away in another part of the orphanage. Mother had the same worries, she was assured they were let out only on the full moons to be escorted by a team of Aurors to a safer place to spend the night. The rest of the time they wear masks and have their nails cut short to prevent them from infecting anyone when they are in human form and not as uncontrollable.”

Dahlia sits back to listen with a growing sense of horror as Montague continues to describe the living conditions of magical orphans who weren’t lucky enough to have anyone take them in. She can’t believe she was actually starting to feel grateful for the Dursleys!

Chapter Text

The first school morning does not start with a Howler from Mrs. Weasley as it would have for Harry had Dahlia not been around to veto his or Ron’s terrible ideas.

Dahlia had seen quite a few Howlers in her three years at Hogwarts. Mrs. Weasley was accustomed to sending one at least once a week to Fred and George. There was also the trend of sending a special little red envelope to boyfriends/girlfriends when you wanted to publicly humiliate them while breaking it off. Usually, the recipient had cheated or done something equally horrible, so they tended to deserve it. Except, there was that one time it had turned out to be a huge misunderstanding… The drama as the students involved attempted to figure it out…

After a hearty breakfast of porridge and toast, Professor Snape passes out their course schedules and Dahlia was off to nap in History of Magic.

“Hey, Potter!” She pauses by the classroom door and turns to look at the Hufflepuff upperclassman she’d never spoken to before. “Did Arthur Weasley really try to bite Lucius Malfoy?”

“No! Where in the world did you hear that?!”

Zabini was not the only one to ask about the Weasley/Malfoy feud. In the absence of anything better to gossip about – meaning her brother, the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter himself, and his best mate arriving to school in a flying car – the encounter in Flourish and Blotts was the talk of the school. Dahlia had already been forced to recount the whole thing during the Welcoming Feast to her year-mates, but she will have to repeat it again no less than five times before noon.

Obviously, even with the Weasleys’ best efforts to spread the truth while pinning it all on the Malfoys, the rumours go wildly out of control. By the end of the day, some could swear up and down as if they had seen it with their own eyes that Mr. Weasley had tried to kill Mr. Malfoy by strangling him with his bare hands.

Classes haven’t changed much from the previous year, other than becoming harder and having a bigger workload right from the first day. Professor McGonagall and Professor Babbling were as strict as ever and Professor Flitwick was just as excitable. Professor Kettleburn wasn’t missing any more bits, which had been a surprise. Professor Sprout promises to teach them the Herbivicus charm by spring and introduces them to the disgusting Bubotuber plant. Dahlia takes an extra long shower after that class and is almost late for Potions.

On Thursday, they have their first lesson of Defense Against the Dark Arts. It went exactly like Dahlia had thought it would and she wasn’t surprised it ended up an absolute mess.  

As they enter the classroom, a huddle of tiny Eaglets hurries by, shooting them wary looks. Dahlia hisses at a particularly wide-eyed one and the poor thing just about jumps out of her skin to the mean-spirited laughter of the other Slytherins. It peters out quickly though when they discover what Lockhart had done to the room.

“This is not a private art gallery!” Someone declares, outraged.

His self-portraits were everywhere. All were framed in gold. A couple were larger than life. One showed Lockhart painting himself. Dahlia chooses a table at the very back and stacks her grossly overpriced Lockhart books up to avoid looking at the nearest painting; their new professor standing triumphant over a mountain troll.

Considering she had made close acquaintance with a troll the previous year, she could immediately pick out Lockhart’s mistakes when he had been painting the creature – if it was his own art in the first place, which she doubted since the paintings were too skillfully painted for a talentless hack such as him.

Sitting down on the seat beside Dahlia, James takes one look at the thing and snorts derisively. “Taking artistic liberties, aren’t we?”

For one, it wasn’t ugly enough. For two, the color of its skin was that of a forest troll.

Burke takes a seat at the table in front of them and is joined by Moon. Zabini and Blishwick take the one on their left. Even Avery declines sitting in the front.    

Dahlia furrows her eyebrows, looking around at her classmates. She’d only seen Gryffindors act like that when it came time for Potion class with Professor Snape.

“We’ve all met him at one party or another.” Turning around, Burke explains in a whisper. “He’s obnoxious.”

Ah. Makes sense.

Lockhart was the perfect example of good looks, but rotten personality. She hadn’t found the actor playing the man in the movie handsome, but here he looked different enough to appeal to her. If she went by face alone. Everything else… His clothes were too extravagant, flamboyant, and flashy for her taste, his vanity exceeded her own, his extreme arrogance was off-putting, and thanks to her unique circumstances, she knew that not only he was a fraud, he was also conceited, narcissistic, insensitive, inconsiderate, self-obsessed, weak, cowardly and suffered from egomania.

Dahlia inwardly grimaces at the memory of the starstruck gazes of many of the female students had sported during the Feast when Dumbledore had introduced the man. She hopes prolonged exposure to him will cure them of it.

Lockhart swans out from his office and grandiosely descends the stairs. “Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and we can’t forget five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award!” His so-called most charming smile – Dahlia didn’t see it – disappears as he surveys the blank faces of his students. “Why are you sitting so far away? Move up, sit closer. Don’t be shy.”

Unwillingly, everyone shifts closer to the front of the classroom.

“I see you’ve all bought a complete set of my books — well done.” Lockhart continues when they were done moving. His smile had returned full force. “I thought we’d start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about — just to check how well you’ve read them, how much you’ve taken in —”

When the man had handed out the test papers he returns to the front of the class and sits down at his desk. He turns over an enormous golden hourglass standing on the tabletop. “You have thirty minutes. Start… now!”

Dahlia flips over the parchment and reads the first question. Then with rising incredulity, the second. And the third. All the way down to question number 54.

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color?
2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition?
3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart’s greatest achievement to date?

…

54. When is Gilderoy Lockhart’s birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?

“What the fuck?” Dahlia mutters.

“This is drivel,” James mutters back.

This was three whole sides of paper filled with overly loopy cursive and narcissism. 

All around the room, students were glancing at each other in confusion. They were all clearly expecting Lockhart to burst out laughing and declare this was a joke, here is the real quiz. Zabini had even pulled out her wand and was prodding the parchment thinking there was a trick to it.

Dahlia had read Lockhart’s books. They weren’t bad if she thought of them as fiction. As muggle fiction. Wasn’t the pinnacle of writing, but Dahlia had seen worse. She had even enjoyed it somewhat by inventing a little game for herself during the summer when she had been bored and Diggory wasn’t entertaining her: highlight the falsities that Lockhart had slipped past his idiotic editors. Finding them and underlining them in bright colors had been strangely therapeutic, though it made her want to tear out her hair at the same time. How the fuck did people believe Lockhart to be the hero he said he was when he claimed to have cured a werewolf in Wandering with Werewolves by casting a Homorphus Charm on it? The spell only temporarily returned the creature to its human form and not once since its invention in the eighteenth century had it done anything else. If he had truly managed that feat, werewolves would have been lining up for miles for Lockhart to cure them.

Of course, despite reading the books carefully, Dahlia had not paid attention to such things as Lockhart’s secret ambition, much less his fucking favorite color. That had been information that she had skimmed over without a second thought.

Why the fuck would she find that relevant? She’d been under the impression they were supposed to view the books as textbooks for their Defense against the Dark Arts class and unless Lockhart was some kind of Dark creature in disguise anything related to him was absolutely useless to them and their continued survival in this dangerous world.

With a heavy sigh, she picks up her fountain pen and despondently rereads the first question.

What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color?

Dahlia lightly taps the capped end of the pen against the tabletop. Probably something girly, but not pink because that was too girly. Pastels? Yes, something soft and light. Shades of blue or violet. Periwinkle. Baby blue. Mauve.

With a mental shrug, Dahlia scrawls Lilac across the page below the question in her own neat cursive. Unto number two; What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition?

Let’s see, gotta be something pretentious, right? Like, ridding the world of evil. Also, how can it be secret if it’s written down in his wildly popular book?

Number three; What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart’s greatest achievement to date?

Not getting disappeared by some influential pureblood he stupidly offended? She puts down Surviving the Himalayas. Real yetis were scary. Given the chance, they’d happily eat even humans.   

…

For number sixteen; What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite spell? Some hair-grooming spell or a teeth-whitening one, no doubt. Smilius Blindius.

…

She pauses at number twenty-nine, furrowing her eyebrows as her eyes dart back up to the top questions and a distant memory tickles the edges of her mind. Didn’t Lockhart use the exact same test in the books for Harry’s class?

“Seriously, man?” Dahlia whispers to herself.

God, she couldn’t wait for Lupin. Dangerous werewolf he might be, but at least, he’s gonna be a good teacher. She’d even take Crouch the Death Eater over this buffoon.

…

Number thirty-six… This is tedious. This is a waste of time.

…

Number forty-eight… Somebody just shoot me now. I won’t last an entire year with this hack.

…

And finally! Fucking finally! Number fifty-four; When is Gilderoy Lockhart’s birthday, and what would his ideal gift be? April 1^st, 1960. Some actually talent.

Lockhart collects the papers and begins riffling through them in front of the class, pacing by his desk. He corrected as he went with an incredibly showy peacock feather quill.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. I’m disappointed.” He says. “You all need to read my books more carefully. Miss Moon got my favorite spell correct and Miss Potter remembered my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil, but forgot I also wish to market my own range of hair-care potions –”

James raises an incredulous eyebrow at her.

“I guessed. He seemed like the type to claim something that outrageous.” She quietly admits and his lips twitch in amusement.

“Now.” Lockhart places the papers on his desk. “How about we read an extract from one of my books? Marauding with Monsters, Chapter Seven, all about how I harnessed and rode a kelpie! Who wants to act out the parts? Come on, don’t be shy. Raise your hands.”

Dahlia groans and thunks her head against her desk. This is going to be torture.

“Miss Potter! Our first volunteer!”

Eugh. Lovely. What are the chances she could get away with murder?

“What are you doing here, snake?”

“Cheering on my brother during his tryouts, Wood.” Dahlia blandly replies, settling down in the Quidditch stands. “Afterwards, I’ll play a game of Catch the Snitch – as I do almost every weekend.”

Oliver Wood, Keeper and Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, splutters angrily. “You’re here to spy on us!”

“Flint knows better.” She says. “He’d have sent somebody who actually knows what the Wronski Feint is.”

“It’s a defensive move for Seekers where –”

“Yes, yes, I don’t care.” Dahlia waves off the sixth-year. “Go on, you’re going to be late.”

Wood huffs and turns his broom sharply around to return to the pitch where a crowd was waiting for him. Last year’s players – the Weasley twins as Beaters, Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell, and Angelina Johnson as Chasers and some guy Dahlia hadn’t bothered to remember the name of as the Seeker – stood in front. The Seeker looked very nervous. He knew he had played horribly the previous season and out of the lot he was the most likely to be replaced, though Wood was the only one truly guaranteed to keep his spot on the team. Perks of being the one in charge.

As small as Harry was, Dahlia had trouble spotting him among his taller Housemate. It is only after Wood splits them into smaller groups that she spies him standing at the edge of the cluster of Seeker hopefuls. He had obviously spotted her too, judging by the wary glances he kept throwing in her direction.

Dahlia gives her brother an encouraging smile and pulls out a book to read from her bag because Wood had decided to begin his tryouts by having all but the Chaser applicants sit on the sidelines and she wasn’t interested in seeing how anyone other than her brother did.

Quidditch is the most beloved sport among witches and wizards. The objective of the game was to score more points than the rival team. The game ended when the Golden Snitch – an incredibly quick and agile winged ball the size of a walnut – was caught. Fun fact: before the creation of the modern-day Snitch, wizards used to use Golden Snidgets, a magical bird so fragile a human grip could crush it to death, in its place. It was only the declaration of the Snidget species as endangered that put the barbaric practice to an end.

A goal was worth ten points and the Snitch was one-hundred-and-fifty. There were seven players per team, not including reserves. The Keeper guarded three goalposts at the same time. The posts looked like giant bubble wands and were of slightly different heights with the smallest standing roughly thirty feet high. The three Chasers worked cooperatively to score goals with the Quaffle – a ball approximately the size of a football – by throwing it through the hoops of the goalposts. The two Beaters used bats to protect their teammates from the Bludgers by hitting them back at the other team – Bludgers being two iron balls ten inches in diameter that fly around trying to knock down players off their brooms. Another Quidditch fun fact: Bludgers were the leading cause of concussions in young wizards. Broken bones were also common.

The most important player on the team was the Seeker. Their only job was to catch the Snitch. It was not unusual for them to spend the greater part of a match hovering above everyone else, doing nothing but searching for the sneaky ball.

Quidditch pitches were oval-shaped five-hundred feet long and one-hundred-and-eighty-feet wide areas with a central two feet in diameter circle from which all the balls were released at the start of the game. Spectator seating for professional matches was constructed in a fully-encircling platform style and could hold up to one hundred thousand viewers. At Hogwarts, the pitch was surrounded by wooden towers decorated in House colors. Students could either sit at the top of the towers or in between.

Hogwarts also had a separate Training Pitch. The teams were supposed to train there, but it was smaller than the Stadium used for official games and lacks goalposts. Quidditch teams used it to practice new, secret maneuvers as it was missing spectator stands too and students from enemy Houses come to spy on them were easier to spot. For that reason, Marcus Flint, Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, had invented an entire stratagem for snooping on that pitch; he sent multiple fakes to get caught, and while his opponents were distracted with those, the real spies slipped by unnoticed under Disillusionment Charms.

A Quidditch match had no time limit other than the catching of the Snitch. Currently, the record of longest Quidditch game ever was three months. Three months! Thankfully, at Hogwarts, matches were cut off by the twelfth hour. The team with the most points won and that was that, according to the teachers. Even Quidditch fanatics such as Professor McGonagall strictly enforced that rule.    

Here’s one last Quidditch fun fact: during the 1473 Quidditch World Cup between Transylvania and Flanders all seven hundred fouls were committed. That included the transfiguring of a Chaser into a polecat, the attempted decapitation of a Keeper with a broadsword, the release of one hundred blood-sucking vampire bats from under the Transylvanian Captain's robes, the setting fire to an opponent's broom tail, the attacking of an opponent's broom with a club and the attacking of an opponent with an axe.

If someone were to ask Dahlia’s option on Quidditch, she’d happily go on a lengthy rant on all the sport’s utter ridiculousness. Fortunately, no one does. They’d learned their lesson after the first and only match she attended.

A hundred-and-fifty points! How the fuck does that make any sense?! It almost didn’t matter how well the six other players on a team played, as long as their Seeker caught the Snitch, they were practically assured to win. Yes, sure, it was possible to catch the Snitch and still lose the game, but how often does that happen? And how many of those times was it because the losing team was being creamed so badly, they just wanted to end their humiliation?

Now, Catch the Snitch was another matter entirely. After the switch from Snidgets to Snitches happened, wizarding sport shops began selling a modified Snitch that glowed and left a contrail behind as it moved. It was originally advertised as a toy for young children, slower and easier to see than the original. The slower speed didn’t last for long.

The general idea of Catch the Snitch was formed by flying enthusiasts who either did not have a suitable pitch to play a proper game of Quidditch or enough players to cover all the positions. The rules were easy; the ball was released first and the players were permitted to lift off the ground ten seconds after. Catch the Snitch to win. Beyond that, it depended on the number of players.

The more common version at Hogwarts was the tournament-styled one because it had no limit on how many players could join a game. Two competed against each other and the winner continued on to the next round against another winner. It did get a little chaotic when there were multiple Catch the Snitch Snitches released on the pitch at the same time, but accidentally catching the wrong ball could be easily prevented by having each Snitch’s glow glow a different color. And the acrobatics necessary to avoid crashing into other players chasing after their own Snitch were part of the fun anyway. It looked strangely pretty, all those ribbons of light weaving abstract designs in the air.

A light drizzle begins. Unwilling to move, Dahlia pulls out her wand and mutters a short incantation. From the upward-facing tip of the piece of wood and tourmaline shoots out a semi-transparent, bluish umbrella of magical energy. Once more comfortable, Dahlia submerges herself back into the dry text of her book. Apparently, Mary Poppins had really existed in this world. A Ravenclaw graduate of Hogwarts with outstanding N.E.W.Ts she had been recruited by the Ministry to work with muggle-born children who had a little more difficulty than most controlling their accidental magic. She had been killed by Death Eaters during the first rise of Voldemort for helping smuggle muggle-borns and their families out of the United Kingdoms, consequently earning with her heroism her post-mortem fame.

An astounding number of famous people in the Muggle world were in truth wizards; Lewis Carroll – to Dahlia’s no surprise, Walt Disney, a graduate of the American Ilvermorny and the inventor of moving photographs, Bellepheron from the Greek myths, the only wizard to ever manage to kill a Chimaera, Abraham Van Helsing, a vampire hunter, Saint Nicholas aka Santa Claus, Rasputin, Elizabeth Báthory, the Comte de Saint Germain, John Dee, Gilles de Rais…

“It’s Harry’s turn next.”

“Huh?”

Ava smiles. “It’s Harry’s turn.”

“Where did you come from?!” Dahlia blinks back, confused. She hadn’t noticed anyone sitting down beside her. “When?!”

James stifles a laugh. “Good book?”

“Apparently.”

Dahlia throws a glare at the Ravenclaw sitting on the stands behind her. Why was Kyle teasing her? As if he himself had never been so engrossed in his book that he had tripped over a bench and faceplanted into a rose bush.  

Ava’s smile widens and she reaches towards Dahlia’s wind-swept hair. Humming some song under her breath, she begins weaving the inky strands into a plait. Power curls in her words, magic meant to entrance the listeners.

“You’re getting better,” Kyle notes. He shifts so that the magical umbrella projected by his pleasantly springy, 10 ½” wand of pine and phoenix feather with a handle carved in the likeness of a raven covered his younger sister.

Wood begins by having Harry perform a few tricks on his broom. Sharp dives, swift turns, sudden stops… Harry does well at all of them. Not only he had natural talent, but he’d been practicing with the Weasleys during the summer and before that with Wood at school. There were only three other Gryffindors of various ages trying out for the Seeker position because everyone already knew it was Harry’s unless the pressure got to him and he screwed up.

After thoroughly testing Harry’s flight skills, Wood pulls out a bag of golf balls and starts throwing them around in random directions. Harry was to catch as many as he could before they fell to the ground. He misses one, but that was because Wood had flubbed his throw and the ball ended up in the stands.

For the final test of skill, Wood has all the Seeker hopefuls gather back on the field and play a slightly changed game of Catch the Snitch. The Snitch didn’t glow and Wood had decided to include the Bludgers and the Weasley twins who retained their spots on the Quidditch team as Beaters into the game. Because Seekers were frequently the most fouled players, Wood wanted to see how well they would hold up when they were under attack. It was a very common tactic for Beaters to bombard the opposing Seeker with well-aimed Bludgers, especially when the Snitch was sighted and they were this close to catching it and winning the game. At least, according to James. All Dahlia knew about Quidditch tactics was that the Slytherin team had perfected Blocking, a foul where a player deliberately put themselves in the way of the opposing team's Seeker, with the intention of obstructing their way towards the Snitch. They did it by intentionally having their Chasers move the Quaffle into the area the Seekers were chasing after the Snitch and ‘accidentally’ cutting off the opposing team’s Seeker by throwing the ball in front of them and rushing after it, thus blocking the player without doing it ‘deliberately’.

Slytherin never play fair when they could get away with it. Card Night in the Pit had a lot of cheating going on. Dahlia had gone as far as to check out a book on muggle magic at the local Surrey library to learn sleight-of-hand tricks one summer. As she was using muggle techniques, she got away with it because her pure-blood Housemates had no idea how to spot them. She also learned how to count cards and was in a longstanding alliance with Avery. Everyone knows they don’t get along, so nobody expected them to actually be helping each other out. They thought she was with James and they were, but Dahlia suspected he was actually using her as a front for his alliance with Zabini. Or was it Burke? She wasn’t certain. Could be both. Could be neither.  

Of course, at first, they hadn’t played anything a muggle might recognize. Wizards had their own games despite the extremely popular Wizard’s Chess being literally identical to the muggle variant but for the pieces enchanted to move of their own accord when commanded by a player. When taking out another piece, the attacking chessman smashed it violently into smithereens. They enjoyed offering advice to players they knew were bad at the game, though their so-called help was mainly throwing other pieces under the bus to avoid being taken themselves. Even if Dahlia hadn’t been an absolutely horrendous chess player, the encounter with McGonagall’s giant set during the Philosopher’s Stone debacle would have completely put her off the game.  

There was also Exploding Snap, a reflex game where you gained a point by tapping two identical pictures with your wand. Its first variation was more of a memory game where you laid out twenty cards face-down and revealed them in pairs. The second variant was the Bavarian Rules Snap. Cards were dealt in a circle and the matching cards to those already dealt were placed in the circle. In each variant, the cards lived up to their name and exploded at certain times. Common images drawn on the cards included magical creatures and portraits of famous wizards and witches such as Chieftainess of the Wizard’s Council Elfrida Clagg whose birth date is debated by about one or two centuries and whose hair in youth used to be green. This particular game wasn’t very well-liked in the Pit. Too simple and childish, they said, let the moronic Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs play with it.

Similarly, Slytherins as a whole tended to dislike Gobstones, a game whose lone difference with muggle marbles was that the stones squirted a putrid liquid at a player when they lost a point. Dahlia had tried it the once and avoided it since. It was forbidden to play inside the Common Room, reserving an abandoned classroom in the opposite corner of the dungeons for the small Slytherin Gobstones team that stank to high heavens and had been remodeled by some former Head of House generations past by building a corridor to divide the room into two. One side was used to play Gobstones, the other had shower rooms for each gender installed. The door leading out of the Gobstones Club Room had an enchantment placed on it that didn’t allow anyone to come out until they had thoroughly showered. Strangely, Gobstones was considered a sport and Hogwarts even had its best players of each Gobstones House team participate in matches against other wizarding schools. There was an International Gobstones League and the National Gobstones Association hosted a Gobstones World Championship. Its current reigning champion was one Kevin Hopwood and he had been undefeated for the last five years. Eileen Snape, née Prince, mother of Professor Snape, had been the Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team and the President of the Hogwarts Gobstones Club when she had been still in school.

During Card Night, Slytherins used to mainly play a game called Hex that resembled the premise of Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering. Maybe. Dahlia had never actually played any of them so she didn’t know for sure. And probably wouldn’t be able to check for a while yet, because none of them had hit the muggle market yet.

Boy did that make Dahlia feel old.

Played with elaborate magically animated cards, Hex was a game more popular with the elite than with the poor, mostly because the more powerful the card, the rarer it was and the harder to find. As winning a game of Hex was hellishly difficult with only common cards in your personally customized deck – and Dahlia would know, she didn’t win a single game until Malfoy the Older, tired of seeing her lose, had exasperatedly tossed her his secondary deck that was still leagues above her own somewhere during the middle of May of her third year – a serious player who wished to one day become a professional by joining a National Hex team and playing internationally must spend a lot of money buying booster packs in search of those elusive cards.

Hex cards were generally divided into three categories, and those categories were further divided into separate types and sets.

The creature category included Beast, Spirit, and Being type cards. In the topmost left corner, they were marked with a classification ranging from X – meaning boring – to XXXXX – meaning known wizard killer/impossible to train or domesticate. As the game classifications of species and danger levels were identical to those given by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures aka the Department of Magical Creature Regulation, Dahlia had found the cards to make for a handy study tool for the Care of Magical Creatures class.

Muggle was a XX – harmless/may be domesticated – Being card, though it had been campaigned in the past by extremists to have muggles reclassified as Beasts along with Dragons, Trolls, Thestrals, and other animals that were deemed to not have sufficient intelligence to understand the laws of the magical community, nor bore any part of the responsibility in shaping those laws. Werewolf had the dubious honor of being classified into two types; XXX – competent wizards could cope – Beings when not paired with the Full Moon action card and XXXXX Beasts when paired. The cards Wizard and Witch were classified as XXX Beings, as were their counterparts Dark Wizard and Dark Witch, but the scarcer ones depicting famous magic-users could range anywhere from XXX to XXXXX. The wizarding career-type cards like Auror, Healerand Curse-breaker were folded into the Being subcategory.

One thing to watch out for regarding the classifications and the danger levels was where the particular card you were playing with was originally issued. You could mix and match say, British cards with German ones, but you had to remember that while your You-Know-Who was a British-issued card with an XXXXX rating, Dark Lord Voldemort was a non-British card with a rating of XXXX – dangerous/requires specialist knowledge/skilled wizard may handle. Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald was the opposite; an XXXX on a British-issued card, but an XXXXX on a European-issued one. Preferably, your deck should contain a British You-Know-Who card and a European Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald card.

Another thing to watch out for was country-specific cards. Japan sold a Kitsune card, but not Britain. Having one to play would throw your opponents who wouldn’t have a ready strategy against it into a loop.  

The second and third categories of Hex cards were action and defense cards. Depending on the card and how it was played, many of those could be considered as either/or.

Most of the action/defense cards had to be paired with a creature category card to be played. Some couldn’t be matched with just anyone. There were entire sets of cards that could be paired only with a particular creature card. Almost all – but not all – potion-type cards could not be used with any but the Potion Master. Likewise, with runic ward-type cards and the Warder, or magical plant-type cards and the Herbologist. None but the XXXX Beast Phoenix was capable of activating Healing Tears. The Disarming Charm card could be cast solely by a card from the wand-using card set – Dark/Wizard, Dark/Witch, famous magic-users, and wizarding career types.

An action/defense card’s strength also depended on the danger level of the creature card it was being paired with. You-Know-Who’s Expulso Curse would be stronger than a simple Wizard’s or Witch’s. Another trait its strength hinged on was whether the action card was a Light type or Dark type and which type the card was being paired with; it was better to play Cruciatus Curse with Dark Wizard and Dark Witch than with Wizardand Witch.     

Into the action/defense categories, you could also add magical object-type cards. Unlike the rest of the action/defense cards, some of those could be played without pairing them with another card, though they tended to be stronger with an Enchanter. Among this type, you could find the rare Time Turner card, the Philosopher’s Stone card, the Mirror of Erised card, and the more common Shield clothes set.

The aim of the game was to kill your opponents by draining their health points. There were many rules and even more exceptions. A good memory was a must unless you wished to interrupt the game on your every turn by diving for the thick rulebook. A single game could last for hours and hours without an end in sight.

Dahlia loved it.

Nevertheless, playing the same game over and over again could get boring after a while and one Card Night, James asked her to teach him how to play a muggle card game. After gaping at him in surprise for a long moment, Dahlia had an upperclassman transfigure them a standard French-suited deck. The older student and his friends, curious about the strange cards, requested she taught them how to play too. Still shaken, Dahlia agreed and taught the other Slytherins the first muggle card game that came to mind; poker.

That, perhaps, will be the worst mistake she ever makes. 

It being a Hogsmeade weekend, the upperclassmen had pockets full of money and several graciously loaned their coins in place of poker chips. An hour later, poker dethroned Hex as the most favorite game in the Pit and there was a box of newly transfigured bona fide chips standing on a bookshelf.

Turns out, Slytherin poker players? Ruthless. Absolutely ruthless. Were their poker faces any good? Most Slytherin pure-bloods were trained to be tiny politicians by their parents from the moment they could walk, what do you fucking think? They already didn’t show their true thoughts on their faces, the introduction of poker into their lives only made them worse. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were the ones who could be read like open books and wore their hearts on their sleeves. If you think you know what a Slytherin is thinking, then they are faking it.

Plus, they learned to feign tells incredibly quickly. On their own! Dahlia hadn’t even mentioned tells to them! It was supposed to be an advantage for herself! They figured out that it was possible to approximately guess a player’s hand by a change in their behavior or demeanor and took advantage of it within a couple of games. She repeats; on their freaking own!

It was very scary.

And don’t get Dahlia started on their bets. Too late she realized it might have been a bad idea to teach a bunch of rich brats how to gamble – her Housemates were already hooked. The amount of money they were throwing around made her want to break down crying in former broke college student. When she found out it was merely their allowances…

Until she had stupidly taught her Housemates poker, they had never bet on anything other than sports. And sports betting means you told a bookie whether this winged horse or that winged horse will cross the finishing line first, sat down on the sidelines, and trusted someone else’s skills to win you your money. Sports betting was largely all about luck and it could be rather dull. Dahlia had seen Mr. Whitlock the summer she had visited James’ family ranch send his bets weeks in advance by owl and check if he won by opening the freshly delivered Daily Prophet to the sports pages during breakfast.

Poker isn’t a luck-based game. It required strategy and intelligence and skill. You have to win your money yourself. It was exciting and competitive.

Slytherins were very competitive people.

Dahlia included, there is little they hated more than losing. It’s why they cheated so much. They might also be low-key adrenaline junkies – Dahlia certainly was – and a good poker game could definitely get your blood pumping.

In her old life, Dahlia had read a paper on gambling addiction. It had been years ago and she doesn’t remember much, but the gist of it was that when you started gambling, you exposed yourself to a form of conditioning. When you won in your first few games, in the “beginner’s luck” phase, your brain memorized the feeling of euphoria you felt collecting your winnings and made you want to feel it again. So, you played some more, your luck changed and you lost once, twice, thrice, and here, a damage management mechanism formed: a desire to make up for the losses by winning the jackpot. By continuing to play, you risked accumulating more loss, and thus feed into that need to make up for it while at the same time falling deeper and deeper into the trap of gambling. 

In Hex, you didn’t buzz with addictive adrenaline as you played what might be your winning hand. In Hex, you won or lost with no consequences. It was, naturally, pleasant to triumph at such a tough game after failing for so long, but it didn’t evoke quite the same feelings as when you were calculating how much your chips were worth in real coin after a victory in poker. Same with loss; you didn’t have to fork over your cash after losing a game of Hex to Avery.  It happened once and never again. Dahlia would sooner work together with that girl than lose to her once more.

In short, the brains of Dahlia’s Housemates released slightly more dopamine when they won at poker than when they won at Hex. They liked that feeling, got mildly addicted to it, and that’s why Hex was bumped down to second best.

Or something like that.

“Anyone else feels like playing a game of Catch the Snitch?” Dahlia asks, stretching as the Gryffindor team and the former team hopefuls filled off the pitch.

“Didn’t bring my broom.” James shakes his head.

Kyle grimaces. “Professor Flitwick asked me to tutor some younger Gryffindors in half-an-hour at the library.”

“I think I should go with you, brother.” Ava suddenly looks worried.

Dahlia inwardly agreed with the worry. Kyle could be surprisingly short-tempered at times and having to repeat the same elementary stuff three times in a row to people who didn’t want to learn would certainly push his buttons. Ava would be a calming presence and prevent a murder from occurring.

“I’ll join you.” James decides. “I’m behind on that potions essay, and I need to look up a text.”

“I’ll see you later at the usual place, then,” Dahlia tells them and swings her leg over her Siberian Arrow. With a push, she was up in the air and heading towards the newly arrived group of students from various Houses.

“Yo, Potter!” A Hufflepuff yells, a Nimbus 1999 leaning on his shoulder, and a large box containing Catch the Snitch Snitches cradled under his other arm. “You playing a game today?”

“Yep.” She calls back down. “You ain’t winning today, Garcia.”

“Ha! We’ll see!”

Chapter Text

Dahlia scrambles up from the cold ground practically boiling from rage. With a furious yell, the soft snow explodes away from her in a magical outburst.

Panting harshly, Dahlia turns in a circle, surveying the wintery forest she had landed in, a ferocious grimace contorting her face.

She was going to kill the Weasley twins. She’ll fucking gut them and hang them from their entrails in the Great Hall’s doorway for all to see. She’ll castrate them with a rusted spoon. She’ll… She’ll… GOD DAMMIT! Dahlia yells wordlessly again, a bigger explosion of raw magic emanating from her. The trees sway worryingly from the force.

She’d been minding her own business, walking back from the Catch the Snitch game after Harry’s Quidditch tryouts – she didn’t win, by the way – when those two fuckers had popped out from out of nowhere and shoved her into a nearby cabinet that she was starting to suspect was actually the very same Vanishing Cabinet Malfoy the Younger would one day use to bring in Death Eaters into Hogwarts. She was freaking lucky she wasn’t dead! A broken Vanishing Cabinet would either kill the user or more rarely have them disappear for parts unknown, only to seldom reappear. When they did return, it was days, weeks, months, and in some instances, years after they had closed the Cabinet’s door behind them. It was a common problem in malfunctioning magical instantaneous transportation.

What the hell was Dumbledore thinking, leaving that thing around students! And don’t tell her he didn’t know! There’s absolutely no bloody way he didn’t know!

A snowflake lands on her nose.

“Oh, great!” Dahlia snarls, tipping her head back to glare at the night sky and whatever complains she had about being stuck in the middle of nowhere while it was snowing – and all that snow meant she wasn’t lucky enough to miss a couple of days, but months if not years because it was supposed to be the beginning of fall and this place was obviously deep into winter – flee her mind. Her mouth dries and her stomach drops. Her rage evaporates, only to be replaced by overwhelming fear.

The stars were wrong.

Normal green eyes – none of that Mary Sue-ish Avada Kedavra green shit for either her or Harry – frantically dart from one cluster of shining lights to another and it is only after several increasingly panicked minutes that Dahlia accepts she could not find a single recognizable constellation.

She’s taken four years of Astronomy classes. She’d be able to identify constellations even in the Southern hemisphere because some of them were visible in both hemispheres. The Ursas, Orion, Cassiopeia, Scorpius, Draco… It should be impossible for her to not be able to recognize anything.  

She moans brokenly and crouches down, hands clutching at her hair. What the fuck was she supposed to do now?! How was she supposed to return to Hogwarts when she was stuck on an entirely different world?!

Distantly, Dahlia realizes she was having a panic attack. Her heart felt as if it was about to jump out of her chest and she was gasping for breath. It wasn’t fair. She never asked for this. She didn’t want to be Harry Potter’s sister, but at least she knew the story. But this world? What if she didn’t know anything about it? What if it was an even more dangerous place like some post-apocalyptic dystopian world or… or… a Middle Age world like Westeros – oh god. Please let not this be Westeros. She knew less than Jon Snow did given she never managed to get pass the Starks leaving Winterfell. And with her blasted luck, she was Beyond the Wall and about to be attacked by freaking zombies.

She doesn’t know how long she panics, but eventually Dahlia’s breath evens out, though she was still far from clear-headed. She stumbles to her trembling feet with difficulty and casts an agitated glance about for her wand. She had pulled it out when she had noticed the twins but hadn’t had time to cast anything before they had shoved her into what she had thought to be an ordinary cupboard. She had accidentally let go of it from surprise when she hadn’t hit the back and had gone tumbling ass over kettle into snow instead.

Thankfully, her wand hadn’t been left behind, nor lost in the void between worlds, and Dahlia spots the iridescent blue/green/black handle sticking out of a snowdrift a couple feet away. She picks it up, and holds it out in front of her. “L – Lumos.”

It doesn’t work. Dahlia tries not to let panic overwhelm her again.

“L – Lum – Lumos. Lu – Lumos.”

Her wand wasn’t broken. She was just not concentrating. She needed to calm down, that’s all.

Shaking, Dahlia closes her eyes. She inhales deeply, counts to seven, and slowly exhales a warm cloud. After repeating the calming exercise thrice more, the hand clenching the wand so hard her knuckles were white relaxes into a looser hold. In her mind, she imagines the little ball of light at the tip of her wand. She done this before. Hundreds of times. It was the first spell she ever learned. She could do it. “Lumos.”

An eyelid cautiously cracks open.

The wand was shining.

Dahlia nearly collapses from relief.

“Nox.”

The light winks out. 

“Lumos.”

The light flashes into existence again. 

“Nox.”

Gone once more.

Yes, she could use wandless magic. But she wasn’t Dumbledore or Voldemort. She was magically strong, but not frighteningly powerful. Outside of the rare magical outburst, despite spending nearly the entirety of her second life practicing, with great effort she could do things like wandlessly produce a wisp of fire barely strong enough to light candles, unlock locks, summon small objects, et cetera. The simplest of spells, First-year spells. After years and years of practice. A wand in working condition increased Dahlia’s survival chances exponentially.

Finally being able to somewhat think through the thick fog of terror clouding her mind, Dahlia begins to rummage through her school satchel for that book Kyle had lent her about Portkeys, dearly hoping she was misremembering leaving the text in her trunk.

Sure, normal Portkeys weren’t exactly interdimensional and fucking it up could very well kill her, but she wasn’t really seeing any other ways of getting back to her world – a world she had spent too damned long accepting to so easily throw it away for another – other than trying to modify an illegal and highly difficult spell she had never cast before.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have the book. What she did have was: a wand, one broom lying in the snow on the other side of the small clearing, one rune wand, one All You Need to Know About Using Runes, one Imhotep, Egyptian Dark Wizard; a Biography, the Mary Poppins biography she had been reading earlier, one journal/diary containing her Harry Potter plot notes, two fountain pens with extra ink cartridges in multiple colors, a tube of lip gloss, a bottle of dark green nail polish, a small compact mirror, a metal nail file, three hair ties, and one apple she had packed for a snack.

With the exception of the wand, the broom and the apple, it was all absolutely useless trash. She’d packed for a fun weekend morning on the school grounds, not for a season of Alone.

She was a city girl, damn it all! What did she know about wilderness survival? Hell, she didn’t know what to do should she come face to face with a bear. Play dead? Try to back away slowly? Surely you don’t run or climb a tree… What kind of spell would chase off a pissed grizzly?

Biting at her thumb, Dahlia considers her options now that she was certain she was undeniably stuck.

She could fly up on her broom and try to spot a road or a river, but the weather seemed to have taken a turn for the worst sometime during her breakdown. The thickening clouds were also hiding the stars, so it was unlikely she would be able to see much in the dark if there wasn’t an illuminated civilization close even if she did brave the harsh winds.

She could stay in one spot, wait for someone who wouldn’t mind helping a lost young girl to pass by and die because this was the middle of a forest in winter at night and no one would be stupid enough to go wandering in the wild at this time of the year or hour.

Lastly, she could set off into a random direction and hope for the best.

Dahlia sighs. Third option it is until the weather cleared up. Then, she’ll see about the first one.

It goes well at first. The wind wasn’t too bad thanks to the tall trees, and Dahlia had honestly missed real winter, though, not enough to willingly slug through thigh-high piles of snow. She sits sidesaddle on her broom, one leg brought up to rest on the wooden handle and to support her wand hand, the other left dangling in the air, and drifts along scarcely a foot off the ground, enjoying the cold air and the swirling snowflakes illuminated by a Lumos.

It’s peaceful for all that she keeps expecting for something to jump out from behind a tree trunk and try to kill her. There was something… magical about the place. Not magical like Hogwarts. A different kind of magical. It was wilder, almost. Older.

But however much she starts to enjoy the ride, hardly two hours or so after her arrival to this new world, Dahlia has no choice but to stop. She was having more and more difficulty seeing where she was going through the thick curtain of white despite the racing goggles protecting her eyes. It was shaping up to be a full out blizzard.

Thank fuck she had been still wearing her flight outfit when the Weasley twins had pushed her into the Vanishing Cabinet. Without the enchantments, she would probably have frozen to death. As it was, most of her was chilled, but not dangerously so as the charms were built for high altitude temperatures. Only her face, ears and the tips of her fingers which were poking out of her Seeker fingerless gloves were in any danger of freezing and she kept that little problem under control with her own frequently cast subpar warming charms. She tended to overpower the spell to painfully hot levels and her overcorrection had the warmth at a more comfortable degree, but not lasting. A properly cast warming charm was supposed to keep going indefinitely until cancelled and hers faded away after barely fifteen minutes.

She needed to find shelter. Should the charms on her clothes give out, which with her abysmal Potter luck was entirely possible, she would be more screwed than she already was.

There was nothing resembling shelter anywhere in sight except a fallen-over tree, and its bared roots made for poor protection. Building it herself, it is.

Hurriedly, Dahlia starts piling the freshly fallen snow into a dome-shaped mound, packing it tightly down. It was good snow. Wet and sticky. Perfect for shaping and building. Using a weak freezing charm, she skips the minimum thirty minutes she needed to wait out for the snow to solidify and as soon as it looked like it wouldn’t collapse, digs out an entrance on the downwind side. Crawling in, she hollows out the mound, leaving the outer walls at least a foot thick. In the ceiling, she makes a hole to allow carbon dioxide to escape. She crawls back out, and collects several armfuls of branches from nearby coniferous trees with the handy help of the Severing Charm and lays them in a thick layer over the ground inside the shelter. She goes back outside again.

Gathering a small pile of snow, she transfigures it into a jar of clear ice. The ice she then further transfigures into glass. Snow to ice was a First-year spell. They had been spent an entire class before the Christmas holidays having fun making tiny sculptures of whatever came to mind. Point stingy Professor McGonagall had loved Dahlia’s fine butterfly with its intricate frosted wings and had awarded her a whole five House points for it. She had even done Dahlia the favor of casting a Never-Melting spell on the sculpture because she’d been so proud of it she wanted to keep it.

Ice to glass was harder, but not beyond Dahlia’s capabilities. A more experienced wizard could have done snow to glass in one shot, but she wasn’t quite there yet. Her attempts came out frosted and while beautiful in its own way, at the moment, Dahlia needed her jar to be translucent, so two steps it was.

Into the finished container she conjures Cold Fire – Cold Fire being the proper name of the bluebell flames Hermione had once used to set fire to Snape’s robes – before returning for the final time into her shelter. She blocks the entrance with more snow and prepares to hunker down in the quinzhee until the blizzard passed.

Aided by magic, the whole affair was done surprisingly quickly. She vaguely remembers trying to build a similar shelter once as a child in the backyard during her first life. She had given up after ten minutes from fatigue.

Huddling up to the wall, the jar of warmth and light pressed between her knees and her chest, Dahlia sucks on some freshly fallen snow to quench her thirst and pulls out her apple from her satchel.

According to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration, it was impossible to produce food out of thin air. However, nothing was stopping a wizard from simply duplicating it.

“Geminio.” With a tap of her wand, Dahlia had two apples. With another, she had three, and four, and five, and six. Biting into one with hungry relish, Dahlia remains keenly aware the Doubling Charm was only a stop gap measure to starvation. Even with preservation charms – which she didn’t know – the original apple would have rotted eventually, and the copies became less substantial with each duplication. She wouldn’t be able to last long on a single apple.

Dahlia needed to find civilization. Fast.

She wakes up hurting. The quinzhee was small, forcing Dahlia to move around on her knees and to sleep curled up in a tight ball. Now, her spine was protesting the rough treatment.

After a quick breakfast of more duplicated apples washed down by a suckled shard of ice, she cuts an exit in the solidified snow wall and scrambles out. Stretching, Dahlia survey the situation outside. The storm had calmed, but not completely abated. It was still snowing quite heavily and the trees creaked ominously under the strong gusts of wind. She was a good flyer and she could manage a flight, but she really didn’t want to.

Dahlia sighs, running the hand not holding her broom through her disheveled hair to get rid of the pine needles caught among the dark tresses. Coniferous branches didn’t make the world’s most comfortable mattress. Too pointy. And sticky. The sap was going to be a pain to wash out.

Alright. A short flight up to see if she could spot anything human – or otherwise – made. She turns to look for a nice spot where the tree branches opened up enough for her to fly through without much difficulty, and the Siberian Arrow slips from numb fingers unto the snowy ground with a muffled thump. She stares.

Amidst the trees, the flame lighting the inside of the old-fashioned lamppost continues to merrily flicker as if it hadn’t just given her a heart attack.

Slowly, Dahlia approaches the edge of the clearing she had somehow missed the previous night by only a few feet to better eye the impossibility. “Of course,” She mutters. “I go through a magical wardrobe and find myself in an otherworld winter wonderland. Where the fucking else would I be, but here?”

Narnia wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t an overly dangerous world. She knew the story, and Aslan could help her return back to Hogwarts. She just needed to make sure the White Witch didn’t know she was here, and she was golden.

She shuffles up to the lantern and brushes a hesitant hand against the post as if to reassure herself it was real. A slightly awed laugh bubbles out of her chest. Narnia! She was in freaking Narnia! Dahlia used to love Narnia. She had read all the books and watched all the movies. Multiple times. Peter had been one of her first celebrity crushes. She had wanted to look like Susan when she grew up. She had adored Edmund after he learned his lesson on betraying his siblings for sweets. She had wanted to be Lucy.

If it hadn’t been Middle Earth, then it had been Narnia that had been the fantasy world that had awakened her love for reading as a child. She couldn’t remember clearly. It had all been so long ago…

Abruptly, she freezes as the wind carries the sound of sled bells towards her, her previous delight immediately forgotten. “Oh, crap.”

Dahlia spins on her heels and runs for her life because the chances that was Father Christmas? Slim. Very, very slim.

She doesn’t get far. The sled was unnaturally fast and she’d dropped her broom too far away to get to it in time, not when she was battling snowdrifts and unsympathetic winds.

The leather of her riding robes protects her from the skin-ripping sting of the whip, but the force of it knocks her face-first into the snow. A hand harshly grabs her by the hair, and she’s jerked her around, heedless of her cries of pain. A knife is shoved under her chin.

Dahlia sobs in fright. Why her? What did she do in her previous life to deserve this? She might not have been a saint, but she’d tried to be a good person, honest! Didn’t murder, didn’t rape, wasn’t racist or homophobic, didn’t steal, gave to charity, and okay, she might have had sexual relations before marriage and as an agnostic she hadn’t – and still didn’t – believed in a specific higher being, but so did a million others, it hardly merited such a harsh punishment.

“Stop your sniveling, wench.” The dwarf whose name Dahlia couldn’t quite remember tightens his grip on her hair.

Gasping one last time, Dahlia falls silent. Teary-eyed, she meets the icy gaze of the White Witch. The woman was sitting in the sled, coolly watching the proceedings.   

She was incredibly beautiful. The most beautiful woman Dahlia has ever seen. So beautiful, it was unsettling rather than attractive. Seven feet tall with deathly pale skin and lips as red as blood, she was clearly not human.

There were not attempts to hide that inhumanness. The White Witch accentuates it with layers of white fur underneath which she wore a snowy dress embroidered to look like creeping frost. Woven into her platinum blond hair were icicles shaped into a crown.

“I felt a burst of powerful magic several hours ago. Was it you, Daughter of Eve?” The White Witch speaks eventually.

“Hecate, actually, my lady.” Dahlia stammers, bullshitting on the spot. “Daughter of Hecate. And, uh – probably? A magical cabinet malfunctioned, and I found myself here. Wherever here is.”

The White Witch cocks her head delicately. “Hecate?”

“The Mother of Magic?” Technically, Dahlia wasn’t lying. Traditionalist wizards believed the goddess Hecate had been the one to create the first magic-users. Dahlia was just expanding on that. “She created us in the image of the Children of Adam and Eve, so uh, the mistake is understandable. My lady.”

“Magic?” The White Witch’s red lips curl up into a patronizing smile. “Are you telling me you’re a witch, child?”

“I –” Dahlia nervously shifts, then remembers the knife and stills again. “I can show you if it pleases you, my lady. I’m still an apprentice, and I can’t do much, but…” She uncertainly trails off.

 God, this was different from last year. She hadn’t been facing Voldemort directly, and he’s been weakened anyway. She’d had hopes of a rescue. This was so much more terrifying. 

The White Witch leans back in her sled. “Show me.” She imperiously commands.

“Okay. Sure. I can do that.” Dahlia mumbles, very slowly pulling out her wand from its holster at her hip to not startle the dwarf into slitting her throat because he thought she was going to attack his mistress. With a wave and a couple of muttered words, an ice rabbit was sitting between them. With another, it stands up on its hind legs, its nose twitching up and down. Its ears twist and turn as if it was truly listening to something.

Dahlia peeks at the older witch who looked on impassively. Another helpless wave of her wand produces a shower of blue sparks.

“Is that all?” The White Witch didn’t appear impressed.

“No, my lady.” Dahlia admits. “There’s a lot more I can do. Fix things, but also destroy them. Heal and hurt. Summon the elements, brew potions, make people do things –”

“What kind of things?” The White Witch interrupts. She actually leans forward in interest.

“Anything at all, my lady.” Dahlia seizes on the lifeline, though she’d been referring to simple spells the likes of the Babbling Curse that made people talk uncontrollably or the Dancing Feet Spell that made a person’s legs spasm wildly out of control, making it appear as if they were dancing. If she does not wish to die – which she does not – she must make herself useful. “As long as they are under my control, they will be unquestionably obedient to me. Of course, a person, with an exceptional strength of will, like you, my lady, if you would permit me to presume, could resist, but those are uncommon.”

The White Witch smiles again, chillingly. “Show me. Ginarrbrik, release the girl.”

“But Your Majesty!” The dwarf protests. He nicks Dahlia’s throat and she feels a drop of blood drip down into the hollow between her breasts.

“That’s an order, Ginarrbrik.” The White Witch already straight spine straightens further. “Or do you believe this child’s magic is stronger than mine own?”

“No, Your Majesty.” The dwarf sullenly responds and releases Dahlia.

She shamelessly scrambles away on hands and knees, and once at a sufficient distance, conveniently steps away from her broom, stands. She brushes snow off her pants and sniffles, discreetly wiping her nose. She was an ugly crier. How embarrassing. “On the dwarf, my lady?”

“Go on.” The White Witch encourages. “Make him do something funny.”

Dahlia had never tried casting the Imperius. She didn’t want to land in Azkaban if she got caught after all. But she knew the incantation and she remembered Bellatrix Lestrange’s tip on casting Unforgivable Curses; you need to mean them. Well, she did. She meant it when she whispered Imperio and watched as Ginarrbrik relaxes. She meant it because she wanted to live and there was so fucking much she was willing to do to save her own life.

“Dance. Sing.” She murmurs as if it was her who was in a daze.

It was a heady feeling that fills her as Ginarrbrik begins dancing and singing a song about a drunken bear. To be so absolutely in control of someone made her feel powerful, and who didn’t like power?

An enthralled smile grows on Dahlia’s face before she catches it and horror replaces the delight.

This. This was the reason Dahlia feared the Imperius more than the Cruciatus or the Killing Curse. She feared that if she used it once, she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of using it again. She knew herself. Given half a chance, she’ll be using the spell to fix every minor inconvenience in her life.

She could see it clear as day. The Weasley twins and Avery too embarrassed by their own actions to show themselves in public again, Harry an obedient puppet who no longer runs into danger without a thought, no more fear that her Housemates are going to sell her out to the Dark Lord when he returns…

How far was too far? Was what she was doing now too far?  She didn’t know. And that’s why she was in Slytherin and not Ravenclaw.

The White Witch laughs. “What an interesting spell. I’ve seen enough, seize now.”

“Yes, my lady.”

It is the fat dwarf’s turn to scramble away from Dahlia. He clutches at the handles of his knife and whip and his eyes were filled with fear.

“Come.” The White Witch invites, spreading her furs open. “Sit by me, girl. You must be cold, hungry. Let me warm you up.”

“I am well, my lady.” Dahlia says, but nonetheless moves to climb into the sled after picking up her broom. “I’ve had apples and my clothes are enchanted with warming spells. Thank you for your consideration.”

“Let us talk, then.”

Dahlia gingerly puts the Siberian on the floor and allows the White Witch to wrap fur around her. She hopes the woman wouldn’t insist on food. She dimly recalled her enthralling Edmund with it or something. Like hell she was going to willingly consume anything created by the White Witch. She was going to need to work a little harder than that to enchant Dahlia.

“Let us be off.” The White Witch tells her servant. Ginarrbrik climbs into the driver’s seat and whips the white reindeers into moving.

The White Witch turns her attention back to Dahlia. “What is your name, Daughter of Hecate?”

“Dahlia. Dahlia Potter.”

“Do you have siblings, Dahlia Potter?”

Oh, Jesus. “Just a younger brother. And my parents are dead. Young.” She hurriedly clarified in case the White Witch got ideas about her being one of the prophesized children who would free Narnia from her wintery grasp.

“I am so very sorry for your loss.” The White Witch lies. Her lips were curved in well-hidden satisfaction. She changes subjects. “Tell me, why did you run? Am I that scary?”

Dahlia tensely laughs. “I’ve got no idea where I am and who lives here, my lady. I was afraid whoever was coming was going to kill me. You’re not going to kill me, right? I haven’t done anything wrong, my lady. I just want to go home. Please don’t kill me.”

“You are in no danger from me, child.” The White Witch lies like a liar again. “In fact, you may stay with me at my castle, and I shall help you look for a way home. Would I be correct in assuming you are not of this world?”

Look for a way home? Yeah right.

“Probably.” Dahlia agrees. “I’ve never heard of you and you seem like a person I’d have heard of, my lady.”

Flatter, flatter, flatter. Make her like you.

“I am Jadis. Queen of Narnia, Chatelaine of Cair Paravel, Empress of the Lone Islands.”

“I’ve never met royalty before.” Dahlia makes what she hopes is an awed face. “Please forgive me if I cause any offense, my lady, the Potters are a noble house, but we’ve long not been what we once were. My brother and I were raised by my commoner aunt.”

“Nothing to forgive, child. Would you like to know more about Narnia?”

God, Dahlia really wants to know what the White Witch was angling for, acting so nice and kind to her.

“Please. How is it that we are speaking English?”

The White Witch is amused by the question. “You are not the first to come here from another world. Long has Narnia been ruled by the Children of Adam and Eve whose ancestors came from London. I see you know of it.” Dahlia nods and the White Witch turns grim. “They were tyrants, those kings and queens. They worshiped a Great Lion Demon, Aslan, who they claimed to have create this land and have given them divine right to rule. You cannot imagine the depravities they committed, free of all consequence, and I shall not tell you, for there are things children should not hear. I freed Narnia, but even a hundred years hence, my rule is threatened by their followers. They slink and spy in the shadows, corrupting good citizens with filthy lies.”

“How awful.” Dahlia gasps. The White Witch is an exceptional actor and a great storyteller, she inwardly musses. Had she not known the truth, she might have very well believed this bullshit. “Have you defeated the Demon as well?”

A flash of anger runs across the White Witch’s face. “I have not. He hides far from my reach.”

Dahlia judges it prudent to not continue on with this conversation. She switches directions. “Why is there a lamppost in the middle of the forest?” She asks, despite knowing the answer.

“Narnia is a land of magic.” The White Witch answers. “Many strange things are possible here, such as a lamppost growing as a tree would from an old piece of iron. Its light never goes out and the people call the surrounding area the Lantern Waste.”

Trees pass by them. The world was quiet. The winds had completely calmed and the sun had come out. The White Witch might have been influencing the weather, angered by the magic spike that had heralded Dahlia’s arrival. It couldn’t have been her appearing, the White Witch would have felt the Pevensies arrivals too then. It must have been Dahlia’s outburst of accidental magic.

No birds sang.

They were hiding, Dahlia knows. Hiding from the White Witch, the true tyrant. The Talking Beasts and the Centaurs and Satyrs and whatever other creatures lived in Narnia. The Stars weren’t just giant glowing balls of hot gas. They could come down to the earth and appear as human.

The White Witch said it has been a hundred years. That was good. That meant Aslan was coming soon. She won’t have to wait long. She’ll need an exit strategy and a way to reach Aslan’s camp. Her broom will come in handy. Until then she just has to survive. Get into the Witch’s good graces, maybe learn a thing or two about magic and stay ready.

Aslan will be able to send her back to Hogwarts. He will. He has too.

Chapter Text

Dahlia pushes off the heavy furs and immediately casts a wandless, non-verbal warming charm. Half a year of constant practice was bound to get anyone very good with a spell. She digs her bare toes – even in the most sever of cold she hated wearing socks to bed – into the bear pelt on the ice floor and stumbles sleepily to the wash basin. Another wandless, non-verbal spell melts the frozen-over water in the bowl, but does not warm it further. The shock of the cold completely wakes Dahlia. She wipes the droplets dripping down her face with a fluffy towel and moves to prepare for the day starting with brushing her teeth with a teeth-cleaning charm. It may have felt uncomfortable, but it was more effective and quicker than a regular toothbrush.

She dresses in her enchanted Quidditch clothes. It was just too damned freezing for anything else. Though hard to do, it was possible to exhaust one’s magic and trying to hold a warming spell 24/7 would have done it.

The outfit isn’t too dissimilar to something one might wear to ride a horse. Heeled boots, tight breeches, a turtleneck shirt. Instead of a jacket, she wore long wizarding robes, which only buttoned at the top half of her body to allow freedom of movement to her legs. The sleeves were not the wide, flappy things current wizarding fashion preferred. They instead tightly cinched at the wrists with tiny broom-shaped buttons.

Dahlia stuffs her racing goggles – not too unalike to swimming goggles, just leather instead of plastic – into a pocket, puts a furry ushanka on her head to protect her ears and pulls on fur-lined gloves.

There was a lot of fur currently in Dahlia’s life. Because, again, it was just too damned freezing for anything else. Even as she was standing here in her bedroom, her breath misted white. For her own sanity, she tries not to think about how ethically sourced that fur was in a world inhabited by sentient animals.

Hefting her Siberian over one shoulder – Dahlia never went anywhere without her broom in case she’d need to get the hell out of dodge at a moment’s notice – and swinging her school satchel over the other, Dahlia heads to the kitchen for breakfast.

As she walked, servants scramble out of her way with barely concealed fear. Tales of Dahlia’s particular talents had spread within a fortnight across all of Narnia. She wasn’t proud of it, but such was the price of her continued survival. And she did try to make up for it. For example, when the White Witch was making her question a supposed Aslan-supporter – and there was an increasing number of those lately, it seemed like – Dahlia didn’t make them spill everything if they were the genuine article. Occasionally, she would even make them lie. It was another thing she’s gotten very good at; giving non-verbal commands when imperiusing someone. Gave her a killer migraine, tho.

She liked to think of it as her contribution to the brewing rebellion, however seemingly paltry. All uprisings needed inside men to be successful. The White Witch has yet to hear rumors of Aslan’s return. She thought this to be one of the small insurrections that rose up every couple decade. It wasn’t all thanks to Dahlia, but she prefers to think she definitely played a part in keeping the Witch in the dark of the true nature of this particular rebellion. It helped with the guilt.

Dahlia doesn’t know what she is going to do should she turn out to be wrong about her timeline and Aslan’s rebellion being actually decades down the line. She wasn’t prepared to spend an undetermined number of years in the disagreeable company of the White Witch. She was pushing it already with this half year, any longer and she was going to do something regrettable thanks to her temper exploding at the wrong moment.

“Lady Potter.”

Dahlia pauses and turns to smile at Ginarrbrik. “Good morning.”

Ginarrbrik warily grips the knife at his belt as he’s wont to do in her presence. He’s never quite gotten over their first meeting. “My lady, Her Majesty, the queen, is to leave at noon today for a short tour of her lands. You are to accompany her.”

“I’ll be there.” Dahlia promises, her stomach sinking. She hated spending more time than necessary around the White Witch. She hated spending time with the White Witch, period. It was painful. And humiliating. Her self-confidence was in the dumps and she knew she was smart. She was stressed all the damn time. She had nightmares and she was constantly on the verge of frustrated tears. Thrice she has destroyed her room in fits of anger she couldn’t express in front of the White Queen. The bitch was worse than Professor Snape was towards Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors. At least he didn’t believe in physical punishments.

From her school satchel, Dahlia digs out a leather-bound notebook. Loose parchment sheets stuck out and there were maybe a dozen bookmarks marking pages. Hastily reviewing her lessons, she descends further into the bowels of the castle. The White Queen tended to ask questions about very old lessons to test how well she’s retained them.

The kitchen was in the basement levels, dug in the earthy surface of the island the White Witch had chosen to construct her ice castle. It was the only room to have been allowed a fireplace in the entire place so Dahlia spent a lot of time hiding in a little nook by the warmth-radiating chimney. As a consequence, the kitchen staff were nearly the only ones who weren’t terrified of her.

“Good morning, my lady.” Cook greets. She was a female faun of wide girth, ruby cheeks and thick curls. Unlike the top-naked male fauns – the furry bottoms didn’t count as naked – Dahlia has seen running around, she was wearing a breastband and had a clean apron tied around her waist. When they first met, she’d taken a single look at Dahlia and declared she was much too skinny, already spooning a hearty serving of stew into a bowl. For a second, Dahlia had thought Molly Weasley’s spirit had possessed Cook. Swallowing down a wave of overwhelming homesickness through a tight throat, Dahlia had gratefully taken the bowl. Crazy, huh? You didn’t know what you had until you didn’t anymore. She’s never going to offer companionship to Mrs. Weasley of her own free will, but she had to admit the woman was kind and good, even if she was ignorant of some things. When she got back home, Dahlia should do something for her to thank her for letting her and Harry stay at the Burrow despite showing up uninvited. She wasn’t going to accept money, but maybe a gift of some sort? Dahlia’s going to have to think about this.

“Smells incredible as always, Cook.” Dahlia distractedly compliments. She underlines a passage with charcoal. Nowadays, her fingers were often stained soot black. Narnia didn’t have modern pencils and charcoal pencils were easier to use on the move than ink. She should invest in a clipboard with an attached inkwell.

Cook chuckles, long used to Dahlia’s particularities. “How about a sandwich for breakfast today, my lady? Marigold, get the lady some of that fresh bread we just baked.”

“Yes, Cook!” A large grey hare obediently hops off towards the oven. She had a cheerful golden ribbon tied around her head.

“Whatever you say, Cook.” Dahlia mutters and blindly shuffles to sit in her corner.

Going by their past trips, the White Witch was going to pass her time quizzing Dahlia on their lessons and if Dahlia wasn’t adequately prepared, she’ll be wishing for detention with Professor Snape or worse, Filch.

“What would happen if you add fire-berry juice to a Chilling Potion?”

Dahlia rakes her brain. The Chilling Potion the White Witch referred to was technically a fever reducer. But the version the White Witch was asking her about was more accurately a poison. It gradually dropped a person’s body temperature until they froze to death from the inside out. There had been a practical demonstration. The White Witch enjoyed practical demonstrations. Dahlia didn’t. They were what fueled the majority of the nightmares that have taken to plaguing her nights. 

“Boom?” She offers unthinkingly and immediately cringes, expecting punishment for her crude, unsophisticated answer.

“Yes, boom.” The White Witch merely mocks with a cruel twist of her lips. The ‘you idiot’ is heavily, but silently, implied. “Do you know why, or must we repeat the lesson?”
“Because fire-berry juice counteracts pearl powder.” Dahlia hurries to says with more confidence. Repeated lessons were always worse than the first one. “They are magically opposing elements.”

The White Witch nods, slightly appeased. “Good. And how can that be fixed?”

Dahlia thinks for a long moment, scrawling messy and complicated mathematical equations in her notebook with the prosecutor to fountain pens; the metal nib pen. She awkwardly holds the ink pot between her thighs, opening and closing it each time she needed to use it to prevent it from spilling when the sled slides over rocks and such. Tergeo was a cleaning spell that siphoned liquids off and out of things, but Dahlia was typically careful with ink and never had a reason to practice it much. The lack of practice results in her drawing out all the ink on the paper when using the spell. She wasn’t keen on restarting her lengthy calculations.

How to fix a Chilling Potion ruined by fire-berry juice hadn’t been something they had gone through in their lessons, but the Witch enjoyed making Dahlia reason things out on her own. She didn’t believe in spoon-feeding answers and punishing Dahlia for her inevitable mistakes brought her amusement. “By stirring counterclockwise five times and clockwise for three while feeding the potion a trickle of magic if we assume it was one drop of fire-berry juice in the next ten seconds. There’s no point in trying anything if you miss that window of time. After the explosion, the potion is irrecoverably ruined.”

“Continue.”

Dahlia opens her mouth and forgets all about expanding on her thought process as she spots a passing figure from the corner of her eye. She cranes her neck to look back, because holy shit, that looked awfully human and Narnia didn’t have humans. They all lived beyond the borders; the White Witch slaughtered any that came into her lands.

“Stop!” The White Witch commands.

Ginarrbrik pulls at the reins so hard, the pony-sized white reindeers almost sit down. Climbing off the driver’s seat, he runs back in the direction they came from. There is the sound of a cracking whip and Edmund, because that could have only been Edmund, yells out.

Dahlia jumps to her feet, watching wide-eyed. Edmund was nearer to Harry’s age than hers. He was dark-haired with freckles decorating his pale skin and there was a hungry thinness about him. If Dahlia remembered correctly, the Pevensies weren’t rich. Wartime rationing must have hit them hard. The unmatched pajamas and bathrobe set he was wearing was certainly threadbare.

“Make him let me go!” Edmund yells at the Witch. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“How dare you address the Queen of Narnia!” Ginarrbrik snarls, pressing his knife against the boy’s throat.  

“I didn’t know!” Edmund whines. Either he didn’t believe the dwarf would really kill him, or he was braver than Dahlia.

“Let him go.” The White Witch commands and Ginarrbrik reluctantly removes his knife from Edmund’s neck. She steps out of the sled. “Is that your younger brother, Dahlia?”

Dahlia startles at being addressed. “No, my lady. I don’t know him.” She fibs.

“How interesting.” The White Witch musses to herself. “What is your name, Son of Adam?”

Edmund gets to his feet. “Edmund.” He introduces himself with badly hidden suspicion.

“And how, Edmund, did you come to enter my dominion?” The White Witch asks.

“I’m not sure.” Edmund says. “Please, Your Majesty, I came in through a wardrobe. I was just following my sister –”

Dahlia winces. That had been the wrong thing to say, though of course, Edmund couldn’t have known that.

“Your sister?” The White Witch interrupts. “How many are you?”

Dahlia valiantly resists the urge to frantically shake her head at Edmund. If the Witch noticed… she couldn’t bear thinking about it. It would be painful, and she was rubbish at healing spells.

“Four.” Edmund carelessly reveals. “Lucy’s the only one that’s been here before. She said she meet some faun called Tumnus. Peter and Susan didn’t believe her. I didn’t either.”

Winter meets its death,

When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone,

Sits on the throne at Cair Paravel

Or something, goes the prophesy. It’s been decades since she last read the books, and she’d never had a reason to memorizes the poem, so what if she didn’t remember it in full? She had the important part down, didn’t she? Four thrones at Cair Paravel. Four siblings from Earth; Adam’s flesh and Adam’s bone. Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie.

The White Witch’s eyes gleam maliciously. “Edmund, you look so cold. Come sit with us.”

Edmund climbs into the sled after the White Witch and she wraps a fold of her fur mantle around him. He peers curiously at Dahlia. “Are you also from London?” He asks. “Did you get evacuated?”

“I’m from Surrey.” She tells him, sitting back down on the opposite side. “But I arrived here from Scotland. And it’s 1992 for me. The war has been over for decades.”

Dahlia’s theory on her presence in Narnia went as such; in the first Narnia book, The Magician’s Nephew, there was a place called the Wood Between the Worlds. Basically, it was a realm that allowed travel between worlds through pools of supposed water serving as portals.

Dahlia theorized the space they were traveling through when say, Apparating or using Vanishing Cabinets, was actually this Wood. Only, they were going too fast to make it out.  

When Dahlia was shoved into the Vanishing Cabinet at Hogwarts, her displacement was interrupted midway by the connected Cabinet not working properly. So really, she should currently be stuck in the Wood Between Worlds along with everyone else who disappeared in similar incidents, only something had snagged her and pulled her through the pool leading to Narnia instead. She thinks maybe the White Witch or Aslan had something to do with it.

It would make sense for a dimension that existed between all the other dimensions to not have consistent time thus allowing her to arrive in Narnia before the Pevensies.

“Did we win?” Edmund queries.

“At a great cost.” Dahlia tells him seriously.

“Perhaps something hot to drink?” The White Witch asks. “What about you, Dahlia?”

Edmund emphatically nods, his teeth audibly chattering.

“Thank you, my lady, but I’m quite well.” Dahlia says and tries to fade into the background.

As the White Witch had taught her over the last half a year, a good apprentice was only seen and heard when the master wished for them to be seen and heard. Dahlia has gotten good at judging when the White Witch wished her to be seen and heard.

The White Witch takes out from somewhere among her furs a very small, silver bottle. She stretches out her hand and lets one turquoise drop fall from it to the snow by the sled. There is a hissing sound when it touches the ground.

The jeweled cup doesn’t so much appear, as it forms itself from nothing. It was a beautiful work of magic. Dahlia wants to know how she did it. It wasn’t transfiguration, but it wasn’t conjuration either because it was impossible to conjure food.

Ginarrbrik hands the cup to Edmund with a sarcastic ‘ser’ and bow.

“How did you do that?” Edmund exclaims astonishedly, sipping at the unknow steaming drink. It looked like hot chocolate, but didn’t smell like it. Apparently, World War 2 era parents didn’t teach their children about stranger danger.

Dahlia stifles an inappropriate giggle at the mental image of the White Witch standing by a white van tempting kids with candy.

The White Witch smiles at the boy. “I can make anything you like.”

“Can you make me taller?”

The White Witch chuckles. Dahlia didn’t think it was sincere. “Anything you’d like to drink.” She clarifies. “Or eat.”

“Turkish delight?” Edmund asks hopefully. His caginess was quickly slipping away and Dahlia couldn’t blame him for it. If she didn’t know what she did, she might have been a little more trusting too. Her in her first life and her in this life were like night and day. Her own mother wouldn’t have recognized her even without the changed appearance.

Dahlia had been a Ravenclaw in those days. Fictional languages had been her passion with history closely following. She’d been studying archeology at the University of Toronto with an anthropology minor and had a job at the ROM. She’d been a cheerful, slightly spoiled brat with a bit of a temper. A straight A student with enough friends and acquaintances to be considered popular but not popular popular. Fights were rare and never devolved beyond angry yelling. She’s gotten physical maybe thrice in her life, all in her early childhood and only with that one neighborhood boy who had though tugging on her metaphorical pigtails was a good way to make friends but in fact had distressed her greatly.

Funny what being constantly aware of the Damocles sword hanging over your head did to you. Dahlia suspected a psychologist would have diagnosed her with paranoia and anxiety at the very minimum. Maybe an obsessive-compulsive disorder and something trauma-related too. By all right, Dahlia should be locked up in a psychiatric hospital somewhere being spoon-fed pills.

That is of course, if she wasn’t already there and all this was an extensive hallucination. Or was it called a delusion? What was the difference between the two? Her fields of expertise were languages and history, not psychology.

Dahlia had days like that, where she had difficulty accepting the world around her was real. They were more frequent in the early years, but she still got them occasionally. And that devious paranoia kept her from getting the help she desperately needed. Thankfully, she so far had managed to avoid a depressive or suicidal self-diagnosis. Knock on wood. A death wish was the last thing she needed.

The White Witch lets another drop of her magical liquid fall onto the snow. She takes the cup from Edmund and hands it over to Ginarrbrik who throws it at a tree. It explodes like a snowball at contact with the trunk. Dahlia twitches slightly, unpleasantly reminded of a training exercise the previous week. The White Witch had beat her black and blue with ice-hard snowballs. On the bright side, her Shield Charm was excellent now.

Edmund eagerly opens the round box of sweets. He reverently bites into a piece, eyes sliding shut in delight.

Dahlia is once again reminded of wartime rationing. The poor boy probably hasn’t had candy in a long while. She also had a bit of a sweet tooth when it came to chocolate truffles and she hadn’t had any in a couple years now. She could relate.  

“Edmund.” The White Witch says. “I would very much like to meet the rest of your family.”

“Why?” Edmund pauses his chewing. He had powdered sugar all around his mouth. “They’re nothing special.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re not nearly as delightful as you are.” The White Witch takes Ginarrbrik’s red hat and wipes Edmund’s face. Dahlia is astonished. Was she trying to play at caring mother? Well, she had acted pretty nice to her too in the beginning. Pity it hadn’t lasted. “But you see Edmund, I have no children of my own, though I love Dahlia as if she was.” Dahlia fights to keep her incredulously from showing. Luckily, neither the White Witch, nor Edmund, was looking at her. “I would like to give her friends of her own kind, for she is lonely all alone in my great castle. And one day, she will need a consort to rule by her side.” The White Witch strokes Edmund’s hair. “Perhaps you could be it? King Edmund, that sounds nice, does it not?”

Dahlia’s mouth drops open. This was news to her. What the fuck. She wasn’t serious, was she?

“Really?” Edmund turns to look at her and she hurries to school her face.

Over his head, the White Witch gives Dahlia a Look.

“Yes, really.” Dahlia smiles stiffly. “I need someone smart to be my king and you seem to be very smart indeed.” She couldn’t disguise the touch of sarcasm coloring her words and she stoically bears the painful sting that temporally blooms in her chest. 

The enchantment on those Turkish delight must be something for Edmund to believe this tripe.

“Of course, you’d have to bring your family.” The White Witch hurries to remind.

“Oh.” Edmund looks disappointed. “Do you mean, Peter would be king too?”

“No!” The White Witch exclaims. “No, no. A king needs servants.”

Edmunds smiles bashfully. “Well, I guess I could bring them.”

The White Witch points into the distance. “Beyond those woods, see those two hills? My house is right between them. You’d love it there, Edmund. It has whole rooms simply stuffed with Turkish delight.”

Dahlia heroically doesn’t roll her eyes. In all actuality, there was a food deficit in Narnia. Consequences of a hundred years of winter. Produce such as grains and fruits and vegetables had to be brought over from Archenland and the Lone Islands. There was a thriving smuggling operation going on that the White Witch had been attempting to dismantle for years now. One of Dahlia’s responsibilities was figuring out how to create a series of functioning, magically-run greenhouses in this winter wonderland. The White Witch’s powers were apparently too skewed towards the cold to be able to do it herself.

Dahlia has gotten as far as figuring out runes were the way to go and had gotten stuck there. She’ll need several more years of studying runes to even attempt undertaking a project of such scale and by then, Aslan willing, it wouldn’t be needed with such urgency, so she’d been procrastinating some on the task.

Edmund climbs out of the sled and says his goodbyes.

Dahlia watches the boy go. Would it work for her, she wonders. Could she follow him back to Earth through that doorway between world.

The White Witch grips Dahlia’s shoulder. It’s a hard hold. She’ll bruise, but what was another? “You are of different times. His way won’t lead you home.”

Dahlia clenches her teeth. The White Witch didn’t know that. Not for sure. In the third book, Aslan had split the doorway back into two end destinations. But… was Dahlia willing to risk it? To end up in England in the middle of the Blitz on the muggle side and Grindelwald’s campaign on the wizarding side? She’d be poor and homeless. There was no guaranteed the Potters would take her in. Even magic blood testing was notoriously inconsistent and easily tricked. There was this partial Polyjuice Potion knock-off… And it would mean decades until she saw Harry and everyone else again, because Time Turners to the future didn’t exist. If she even managed to live that long, which considering her luck, that dreaded Potter Luck, was highly unlikely.

Tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. She turns away from Edmund’s retreating back.

Aslan will help. He will. He has too.

The next several weeks are tense. The White Witch waits with impatience for Edmund to show up with the rest of his siblings, and Dahlia prepares sneakily for her escape. Her broom is always within arm’s reach and her bag is stuffed with enough supplies to optimistically last to her finding Aslan’s war camp should her Plan A go south.

Dahlia dearly wanted to say screw it all, and get the fuck out without waiting for Edmund’s return. But that meant wandering around until she accidentally stumbled on Aslan’s camp. Narnia was a big place; it could be anywhere and the White Witch would send people after her the moment she realizes Dahlia was gone. And should she accidentally stumble to the border, the patrols would definitely catch her scent, track her down and rip her to pieces. She’s seen the results of attempted escapes. It was nightmare inducing.  

No. It was better to wait. If it went well, Aslan’s forces will lead her right to their base without her having to spend weeks wandering the forest while being hunted by the terrifyingly competent Secret Police.

Dahlia covertly eyes Maugrim as a pair of his lieutenants herded a new prisoner into the room.

Generally speaking, Dahlia was fond of wolves. They were beautiful and interesting. But the wolves of the White Witch’s Secret Police were an exception. They seriously gave Dahlia the creeps. Violence just radiated from them. Often, she would come upon them tearing into each other with horrible viciousness. To her knowledge, at the minimum one had been killed over mere kitchen scraps. They weren’t a pack; they were wild beasts barely kept in line with fear. However hard the inhabitants of the castle attempted to avoid Dahlia; they attempted twice as hard when it came to the wolves.

Dahlia massages the bridge of her nose, feeling her headache spiking. The Secret Police was running her ragged, bringing in increasing numbers of suspected rebels. Giving silent commands with the Imperius took a toll on her mind and more and more of the suspected rebels were rebels in truth. The word of Aslan’s return was spreading. Dahlia has to give up a number of rebels to ward off suspicion from her own person. She comforts herself in the depth of the night by reminding herself they were only going to be petrified. Aslan would free them eventually, so no harms done, right?

“Finished with this one?” She asks Maugrim.

The wolf, larger than any wolf back on Earth, cocks his head. He thoughtfully observes the placidly standing centaur. Their scribe, a trembling ape, hopefully perks up.

“Send in that faun from yesterday.” Maugrim rumbles to his lieutenants. The two other wolves snarl, but move to obey.

Dahlia slumps wearily. They’ve been at it for hours. Edmund’s visit had convinced the White Witch Aslan’s reappearance was also imminent. From the moment she returned to the castle, she was obsessed with routing out and executing all his supporters. All of Dahlia’s previous hard work convincing her it was nothing but a small rebellion went down the drain.

The faun was a fighter. Dahlia could hear the jangling of his chains and the warning snaps of sharp teeth coming from the hallway. Most prisoners were docile, the fight driven out of them merely by being in the White Witch’s castle. In a hundred years, none had managed to escape her dungeons. Stuck on an island as it was, it was basically a magical Alcatraz. She’d compare it to Azkaban, but at the very least, there weren’t any soul sucking monster floating around.

Dahlia covers her surprised squeak with a cough. Her grip on her wand tightens as she watched the wolves force the faintly James McAvoyian-looking faun onto his knees. It was the red scarf that jogs Dahlia’s memory.

“This one was tipped off about his arrest. Did a runner.” Maugrim says grimily. “We found him hiding in the cellar of an abandoned badger den. There was evidence of someone else having been there previously to bring him food. Get me a list of everyone involved.”

Dahlia looks at the cowering Mr. Tumnus and swallows painfully. The faun leans away from her, terror written stark across his face. Defeat fills her. She won’t be able to mean it. Not for Mr. Tumnus. She rakes her mind for a way out. Problem was, she gets out of it now, they’ll only have her return on the next day.

Discretely, Dahlia points the tip of her wand at herself. Nearly soundlessly, she whispers the incantation for a prank spell, one that was a favorite humiliation tactic of the Weasley twins. She’d been hit with it often.

The familiar churning sensation in her stomach is near instantaneous. She clamps a hand around her mouth as she turns visibly green.

“Well?” Maugrim prompts impatiently. “I don’t have all day. Get on with it.”

In response, Dahlia gleefully vomits her lunch all over the wolf. Sweet, sweet revenge. He didn’t respect her? Then she’ll make sure he wasn’t respected either.

“I’m sorry.” She gasps out insincerely, heaving again. “Must have eaten something bad.”

Maugrim roars in outrage and disgust. The ape smartly flees through the open door and Mr. Tumnus watches with bulging eyes.

More wolves skid into the room, brought by the noise. Dahlia pretends to stumble to get nearer and vomits once again all over Maugrim.

Malicious delight spreads across the muzzles of the wolves. They were going to speak of this event in hushed whispers for ages to come. A particularly stupid one actually snickers audibly. Maugrim immediately whirls on him with a snarl. The poor idiot yelps and blood flies.   

One of the wolves, smaller and younger than the rest, pads closer to Dahlia and sticks his wet nose under her hand. She obligingly pets the top of his head. “Are you alright?”

As always when interacting with Maugrim’s youngest son, Dahlia just melts. “Nothing some bed rest won’t fix.”

Laur peers up at her with soulful eyes. “I’ll come with you. Here, lean on me.”

Goodness, how in the world did Maugrim ever father such a sweetheart? Together the leave the interrogation chamber.

Half an hour later, Dahlia is sitting in bed with a cup of chamomile tea for her upset stomach. Taking a sip, she congratulates herself on her quick thinking. Food poisoning should explain her absence from her duties for a few days and will give her time to think up another excuse.

Laur, lying on the bear pelt on the ground, flicks his ears and continues recounting a traditional Narnian fairy tale. Dahlia leans back on her pillows and listens sleepily to the wolf’s soothing voice.