"Please…" the woman uttered, a world of sadness and defeat falling down from her lips as she clutched the matron's arm with weak, trembling fingers. "My baby… his name… Tom. Tom Riddle. His father's name…"

Mrs. Cole touched the woman's arm, a small reassuring smile on her stern face blossoming with uncertainty. "She's a baby girl".

The woman's face contorted in something ugly, and she weakly snuck a glance at the wailing baby that was offered to her. "Cecilia," she said, after a moment. It was barely a sigh, but Mrs. Cole understood that it came with a certain defeat, a ghost from her past which came back to haunt her.

She would think, many years later, that the woman's tale made for a very sad, if cliché, Christmas story. She would remember the woman's hold on her arm going slack as the baby quieted, and a certain ominous feeling at the sight of the snow-kissed streets outside her orphanage.

There she was, in front of her. 16-year-old Prefect Riddle, picture perfect with her long, soft wavy black hair, her almond-shaped charcoal eyes and a face so deceptively fragile that could hide even the darkness in her starving eyes. When 12-year-old Harriet Potter locked gazes with the shimmering figure, she instinctively knew what had happened. There was pure unyielding hardness in her expression, like the thunder as it searches for the next place to strike. A storm had been brewing, and Harriet had ignored the earthy smell in the air, the rarified scent of a tragedy to come. Now that the clouds gathered upon her, she had no choice but to act.

"What did you do to Ginny?" Harriet asked, gaze moving momentarily to the body of her friend. "I don't know how, but you made her do all that stuff. You made her act like the Heir of Slytherin."

"It's a bit too late to be playing detective, Potter," said the teenager, and with a wand that could be no one's but Ginny's she quickly disarmed the younger girl. "You're not here to play the heroine. You're here to give me the answers I need."

Harriet felt panic at the loss of her wand, and her eyes began roaming the place in search of something that could stop Riddle's advance towards her. "What do you want from me?"

"Crucio" the word fell from the Riddle's lips mercilessly. Harriet had come to Hogwarts with several bruises she wouldn't account for if anyone asked, but the pain of the curse surpassed anything she'd ever known. She screamed, her little lungs squeezing out air painfully as the seconds dragged into eternity.

"Good, you were moving too much," the future Dark Lord said as she stepped over the girl's trembling body. She took Harriet's face in one hand, and lifted her up so she could look at her in the eyes. "That girl told me you were famous for defeating Lord Voldemort as an infant. I want to know how you were able to do it."

"W-w-what is it to you?" Harriet replied weakly. "Y-you were before h-her time."

Riddle chuckled, a derange smile blossoming in her face. "Voldemort is my past, present and future, Harriet Potter." She said the words quietly, but to Harriet's ears they were like molten steel pouring painfully into her brain, inflaming her soul, scorching her thoughts. "Now, will you answer me or shall I show you why is it that I was given the title of the greatest Dark witch in centuries?"

"I-I don't know. I-I didn't even k-know I was a witch until last year."

Riddle's eyes twitched and she dropped Harriet's face with a disappointed frown. The girl tried to get away from the witch, to no avail. The teenaged Dark Lord grabbed her by the base of her ponytail and dragged her up until she stood face to face with her.

"That's a shame, Harriet Potter. Maybe if I cut you open and examined an organ at a time I would find the answer," Harriet whimpered. "Maybe if I let my little pet basilisk tear you apart limb by limb she'll be able to tell me what is it that you have that was able to vanquish Voldemort."

Harriet looked at Ginny once more, then back to the calculating eyes of the witch in front of her. "Do whatever you want with me, but please, let Ginny go."

"What an admirable sentiment, Potter," she mocked the smaller girl. "Alas, the girl has to die for me to be reborn."

A cry was heard in the distance, followed by a string of deep, powerful hisses that sounded oddly familiar to the Girl-Who-Lived. The dark witch dropped her, and took a step in the direction of the noises. Harriet took it as a cue to get closer to Ginny's body. Her small body ached and trembled horrendously, but she summoned all her strength and managed to reach the pale girl, whose eyes were open and staring at nothing. She seemed to be in a coma of some sort – bewitched by the spell of Riddle who was siphoning her strength.

Near her body laid the little black book with the words Cecilia M. Riddle engraved in gold. Harriet looked back at her nemesis; she had her back to them and was then shouting a string of commands in parseltongue. The girl figured that if she destroyed the diary before Ginny was completely consumed, she could destroy Riddle – but the question was… how?

Just as she hid the book inside her robes, Riddle turned back to face her with a sinister smile. Something was coming; she could hear the sound of flowing water and ancient puddles filled with bones and mud disturbed by the quick pace of a slithering body.

"As you can't give me an answer, Potter, I think we'll have to do a little experiment. Let's see how well the Girl-Who-Lived does against a fully grown basilisk, shall we?"

Harriet felt like crying but she knew she couldn't allow herself the luxury. The basilisk raised its head and the girl had to remind herself to look down before she caught a glimpse of its deadly gaze. She heard a cry of rage, and turned to look at Riddle, whose face was contorted in rage.

"Trust Dumbledore to find his way to meddle with my affairs even here," she spat, and Harriet ventured a look in the direction Riddle was looking at.

Something had blinded the monster. Its eyes were shut, thick dark lines of blood streaming down the scales as the basilisk tasted the air with its tongue. Harriet thought she should cherish small victories, but it didn't seem like it'd help as long as the serpent could still smell her. She started to run towards the pipes as the snake began pursuing her, but before she was about to leave the main hall she felt something explode above her. She looked up, and found a familiar bird carrying a ragged piece of clothing in its talons.

"Fawkes!" Harriet cried, recognizing Dumbledore's pet phoenix. Fawkes answered her by crooning at her and dropping the package. The little girl took it, and watched wearily in the direction of the basilisk, which seemed to be staying back out of fear for the phoenix.

"You blinded the basilisk, right?" Harriet said, turning over the clothing in her hands, finding that it was more than just rags – it was the Sorting Hat. Fawkes answered with a beautiful sound, which the girl took to be a 'yes'.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

The basilisk hissed fiercely then, as if it had gathered enough courage to face the phoenix, and with a clicking of its powerful jaws it lunged at them. Fawkes disappeared in a burst of flames, and Harriet felt like her hope went away with him.

"Dumbledore has a strange way of showing its support, don't you think?" Riddle said so close to her that it almost made Harriet jump in surprise. She appeared from behind the basilisk, halting its attack with just a hand on its scaly skin.

"He sends his girl heroine down to the Chamber to fight a dark witch and a basilisk… simply as an act of mercy, he has his phoenix appear to blind the big bad snake, and gives a hat as a weapon. Even if you were to pull out a sword from within its folds, Potter, doesn't it strike you as a rather odd behavior?"

Harriet stared at the woman, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Phoenixes can side-along dissaparate."

The girl looked at the place Fawkes had been in for a moment, understanding coming over her features. Her face became panicked. "But Dumbledore… he wouldn't… he wouldn't leave me like this? Leave Ginny alone?"

Riddle chuckled cruelly. "You'd be surprised."

"But why… why would he do this?"

Riddle came closer, and as Harriet tried to back away the woman quickly grabbed her by the arm and roughly pulled her forward. "I find myself asking the same question," she said as she began circling her. "You seem to possess no extraordinary magical talents, no special quality that'd merit the attention of a puppet master of Dumbledore's caliber. The only thing which makes you stand out is this," she traced the outline of Harriet's scar with her fingers. "The scar Voldemort gave you, which ties you to her… is this Dumbledore's twisted idea of training?"

"Training?"

"Yes, a weapon – for Voldemort's return. Does he expect you to vanquish me?" Riddle grabbed Harriet's face and stared into her eyes. The girl could almost feel the other's annoyance, the puzzle of her life and the event that had marked her destiny chaotically spreading the pieces around the table. "There is a piece that is still missing."

The woman released her suddenly, her eyes deep in thought as she stared at the basilisk. Harriet felt something hard and heavy in her hands, inside the Sorting Hat. With one hand she lightly touched a metal surface – there was a sword. The Hat had conjured a sword for her, just like Riddle had predicted.

She tried to take it out but the sudden movement was not lost on the blind basilisk, who hissed something like ¡danger! and lunged for her. Harriet could barely think about what she was doing as she pulled the glittering, heavy sword from the hat and thrust it in the direction of the snake. The basilisk roared in pain as the sword cut through the scales under its mouth. In the background, she could hear Riddle hissing angry commands to the snake, but it didn't seem to be answering her.

The creature raised its head; jaws open wide as if to devour her in one bite, and went for a quick strike. Harriet, who didn't think she'd be able to dodge it, steeled herself – the head came closer and closer until the grimy humid darkness covered her vision and she thrust the sword forward.

Both girl and snake screamed in unison – Harriet yanked the sword out of the basilisk's mouth, and stumbled backwards as she brought a hand to her arm. The snake convulsed and moved its head aimlessly, no doubt trying to find the girl before its last breath. With weaker hisses, it crashed its massive body against the pillars of the chamber and finally dropped, splashing water and mud everywhere as it felt into one of the large puddles under Slytherin's statue.

Harriet's breath came in shallow pants as she grabbed the basilisk fang that had pierced her arm. She could hear Riddle move near Ginny's body, and she raised her head to see what she was doing.

"You will not last more than a minute, girl," the woman said, two fingers on the redhead's neck as if checking her pulse. Harriet didn't know if Riddle was talking about her or Ginny, but at the moment she knew she couldn't allow herself to be distracted. She took Riddle's diary from within her robes and raised the basilisk fang. Her strength was fading quickly, and it wouldn't be long until the snake's venom finally killed her.

She brought it down on the diary, piercing it with a vague sense of satisfaction.

Harriet looked at Riddle, who was now standing up with a triumphant smile. "Too late, Potter. That good for nothing snake bought me enough time."

The girl collapsed; crushed hope and venom bringing her down. The world was dimming, and in her view she could only see Ginny's pale face in the sickly white light of the Chamber. Riddle's boots were coming towards her, the sound of water splashing as the confident gait came closer giving her a cold, empty feeling in the base of her stomach.

"Where is Dumbledore now, Potter?" Riddle said, charcoal black eyes glinting with malice. "I would have preferred you lived a little longer, if only so I could kill you myself. But this shall do."

Harriet felt the familiar sound of bursting flames near her, and although she didn't have the strength to look at him, she knew it was Fawkes. The bird approached her prone body, and seated himself near her wounded arm. "Fawkes…" the girl whispered, "I couldn't save Ginny…"

The bird cried. Shimmering droplets fell from his eyes and into the wound. Harriet felt as the growing coldness in her limbs disappeared, little by little, to be replaced by comforting warmth that spread through her.

When it was done, the bird cried once more and spread its wings, as if it was about to take flight. Before it could do so, Riddle shot a spell at it, causing Fawkes to disappear.

"I'm not done with you yet. If Dumbledore wanted to get his precious Girl-Who-Lived he could've done so earlier, don't you think, Harriet?"

Harriet raised her head, still weak from the venom. "If you were going to kill me anyways, why didn't you do it while I was fighting your basilisk?"

Riddle chuckled. "I admit it was tempted. I want nothing more than to reduce you to a mass of broken limbs so as to assuage any doubts the world might have about my power. But," she said, grabbing the younger girl by the neck and lifting her up, "you have your uses. You're the key to whatever game Dumbledore was playing with my older self, and it'd be simply foolish not to take advantage of this situation to destroy that old codger once and for all."

"However, before I let you go I'd like to ask for a little repayment," Riddle threw the girl to the floor and pointed Harriet's own wand at her. "Crucio," she whispered, and let the Girl-Who-Lived shake and scream under the power of her curse.

"That is to remind you that you are not, have never been and will never be a match for me, and this" a silent blue spell hit the girl, who opened her eyes wide and made gurgling noises as her lungs filled and emptied of water repeatedly. "This is for meddling in my affairs."

Harriet coughed, trying to move as little as possible. Every nerve on her body seemed to be on fire.

"Potter, do not take this for an act of mercy" said Riddle as she took Ginny's wand from her pocket, and tossed Harriet's away. "I have none. But I can make use of you yet – and I shall, when the time is right. Until then, Harriet."

The last thing Harriet was able to hear was the sound of Riddle's boots as she marched out of the Chamber.

The summer after her second year was plagued by nightmares and the images of a deranged serial murderer who had escaped from prison. Beware of Sirius Black preached the commentators in the news, and Harriet wished she could worry about him instead of worrying about Riddle. Voldemort.

The Girl-Who-Lived dreamt of Ginny's pale face, Ron's ashy complexion in the train ride back to London, and Molly Weasley's cries in Madam Pomfrey's office the night after the incident. She thought about Voldemort's words – he could've simply whisked them both away from that monster, back to safety, and she felt guilty for not saving Ginny and for having dared to trust her headmaster.

She spent the summer days doing chores for his aunt and uncle, trying to stay away from them as much as she tried to stay away from Dudley. When she wasn't working under the scorching sun, she took to wandering around the place – something she figured gave her aunt the secret hope of her running into Sirius Black.

"How ironic it'd be," she said one night, on her way home, "if it was a muggle murderer instead of Voldemort who got to me first."

"Looking mighty fine there, baby!" she heard a man shout from the other side of the street. She snuck a glance at him – he was shrouded in darkness, a lanky tall figure dressed like he was on his way home after a long day at work. She hugged herself and walked a little faster, trying to ignore the persistent man as he continued to follow her.

"Come on baby, don't be like this," he said, alarmingly close to her. "I can show you a good time, I promise!"

"Please leave me alone," Harriet said in a small voice, edging away from him. His face twisted into a snarl and he tried to grab her arm – only to be bitten by a large black dog.

The man screamed and tried to get away, but the dog didn't relent and bit harder. Blood was gushing out the man's wounds and staining the pitch black fur. Harriet, paralyzed as she was, couldn't think about what to do. The dog finally let the man go, who got on his feet and ran away.

Harriet was surprised to find herself shaking. The dog whimpered and got closer, licking her hands and then her face. "Thank you," she whispered, scratching the dog behind its ears. "You really helped me out".

The dog barked and wiggled its tail happily. Harriet made a new friend that day.

Weeks passed by and Harriet felt like his new found friend not only chased creepy men on the street but also nightmares away. She didn't know where he was from, but it didn't look like he had an owner, so she made sure to steal food from Petunia and Vernon to feed her companion. He played with her in the park, and listened to her with a curiously human patience when she talked about her life.

"I don't know what to think, Blackie," she confessed one day while lying on the grass. Ochres, yellows and reds washed over her skin as the sky darkened in the sunset. "I know that I shouldn't trust her words, but it makes sense – in a way. What does Dumbledore want from me?"

Blackie, as she'd named the strange dog, growled. "Well, I know I haven't said many good things about him, so maybe I'm making you picture him as worse than what he is but… He's strange. It doesn't seem like he's that bad. He gives me a feeling like… like he sincerely thinks he's doing it for my wellbeing."

Blackie follows her around until Petunia announces that Marge is staying for a week with them. Harriet thinks that his scent will only give Marge's over eager dogs another excuse to attack her, so she asks his friend to keep a certain distance until she is gone. She's not sure how, but Blackie understands, and listens from a distance when Harriet complains about Marge's hurting words towards her and her family.

The last day of her visit, during dinner, she says the wrong things and Harriet's magic acts up. Before her family can react, she takes her things and runs outside.

"Blackie!" she shouts, as she hides in the bushes of Mrs. Cromwell's house. The dog follows her and tries to lick her face when he sees his distraught expression, but the girl hugs him before he can do so. "Marge said some mean stuff about mum and dad… and I just couldn't take it anymore, and she started swelling until she began to float… and this is the second time they catch me doing magic outside school, they're going to expel me!"

The dog barked, trying to get the attention of the girl. "I don't know what to do! And I can't go back! The Dursleys are going to kill me!"

She felt big fat tears blurring her vision, and she took her glasses off to dry her eyes. When she put them on again, Blackie was nowhere to be seen and a strange, dirty-looking man stood in his place.

"Wh-?" she tried to say, but the shock had taken her voice. The man put on a reassuring smile, and in the dim light of the streetlights she thought he looked familiar.

"I'm sorry, Harriet," the man said, his voice sounding rough and gritty like the bark of the dog he'd been. "I didn't want to lie to you but I was afraid of being caught… There isn't much time, and I would like to explain it to you fully, but I can't. So I'm counting on you to suspend your disbelief and listen to me, okay?"

Harriet nodded, still confused.

"My name is Sirius Black, and I'm the escaped felon you've been seeing on the news this summer," Harriet's eyes widened, but the gentle gesture of the man stopped her from trying to get away. "I'm also your godfather; I used to be your father's best friend. Twelve years ago we used an enchantment called Fidelio to hide you and your parents, when we found out that Voldemort was looking for them. Someone was supposed to keep the secret, and they chose me at first. Then I convinced them to switch Keepers and use another of our… friends, as one, someone who nobody would think of. This man was Peter Pettigrew. But Peter betrayed them to the Dark Lord, and the night they were murdered I tried to get revenge on him but he faked his death and made it look like I had been the one to betray them."

"I escaped Azkaban when I saw him in his animagus form, a rat, on a picture of the Weasley family. I wanted to get back at him. But before that, I wanted to come and see you; I wanted to know how you were doing."

Harriet felt her head spinning. "I-I… this is too much."

"I know," Blackie –now Sirius- sighed. "I didn't want to… come out because I didn't think it'd be fair for you. Even if I managed to get Pettigrew and clear my name… there are just too many things I've done wrong and that I need to atone for."

Sirius put a hand on Harriet's shoulder. "But, Harry, you've told me that Voldemort is back, and since you don't get the Prophet you probably don't know this, but the Ministry has completely hushed it up. You, your friends and Dumbledore must be the only ones who know this. You've been left to fare on your own all this time and tonight's just another example of that. You should've never been sent to live with those muggles."

"I guess that what I'm trying to say is that I'm telling you all of this now because I want to protect you. You can't be on your own anymore."

Harriet bit her lip. "Okay. What should we do then?"

Sirius smiled. "What you should do is call the Knight Bus and ask them to take you to Diagon Alley. Stay in the Leaky Cauldron for now, while things cool down. It's okay if you don't believe me now. You're a clever girl; you can make up your mind. That goes for Dumbledore, as well."

Sirius stood up, and Harriet followed him. "How can I find you, if I… ever need to talk to you?"

"I'll send you an owl sometime, and you can keep her with you to contact me. She'll know where to find me. Hedwig would probably be able to find me as well, but she's too noticeable."

"All right," he said, hugging his goddaughter once more. "Stay safe, prongslet."

Fudge's smile was a bit forced when he received her at the Leaky Cauldron, so Harriet let the man talk, apologized when it was necessary and thanked the man when he wasn't expected to be thanked. Her mind was still a whirlwind of thoughts about Sirius, Voldemort, and Dumbledore's involvement in everything.

"Ah, Harriet," the man said in a falsely cheery tone, the same he'd used to express his relief at her not having been maimed and killed by a convicted murderer. "I've been meaning to have a chat with you ever since the school year ended, but several appointments have kept me busy."

"Oh," the girl replied. "Is it about… Ginny's death?" She thought about saying Voldemort but she felt like the Minister didn't appreciate directness.

"I'm afraid so, dear girl. Probably you haven't been keeping up with magical news, but as of lately Dumbledore's been claiming that Ginevra Weasley's death was caused by You-Know-Who. He said that she sacrificed the poor girl to restore her powers. You, of course, are in the center of all this, as you were the only witness."

His brow furrowed. "We cannot let him spread fear among the population with wild claims like that, Harriet. This is why I wanted to know from you if what he said was true."

Harriet stopped herself before she blurted out things she wasn't meant to say. She looked at the man, green eyes blinking blankly as she thought about her answer.

"I…I don't know what he's been telling everyone," she eventually said. "But Ginny was killed by Vol… by You-Know-Who. And she's back."

Fudge looked like he'd just swallowed a very strong lemon. Harriet sighed. "I don't know if this helps, but I know how to get to the Chamber, and I can take you there to show you the basilisk's body. Madam Pomfrey treated me because of the after-effects of the Cruciatus curse, she can tell you."

Fudge plastered on a sweet smile. "Oh, no Harriet dear, you're getting things confused. I'm not implying that Ginevra wasn't murdered by a dark wizard. The aurors have examined the Chamber, and checked your wand, and the story checks out. What I want to know if that someone was actually She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

Harriet opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it. She was about to say that they had Cecilia Riddle's diary for proof, but it occurred to her that if they had already investigated the matter, they wouldn't be asking that sort of questions.

She'd have liked to think that adults had their jobs because they liked them, and that they would always try their best to do a good work. But in the last months she'd learnt that more often than not, their actions stopped making sense, and when they did, it was for some obscure reason that she wouldn't end up liking. So she simply nodded and said "well, I can't give you proof of it. It just seemed logical; with the way she talked and acted. She looked much younger than I'd expect You-Know-Who to be, but witches and wizards don't age like muggles so I didn't think much about it."

"Ah, I thought so," said the Minister with the air of a great wise man who was used to being right. "That is a different story altogether. We wanted to know if it was absolutely certain that this dark witch –or wizard- was actually her. Different proceedings to follow, you understand?"

Harriet hummed approvingly, "but you're still going to try to find her, right? The murderer?"

"Of course! This will not go unpunished!"

Harriet thought that he might as well have told her that they were closing the case right then and there. Fudge left with a lighter mood, his secretary trailing behind him.

Harriet spent the first half of her third year on edge, believing herself the target of shadowy machinations by Voldemort. When it was obvious that the undercurrents of the time had little to do with her, the girl allowed herself to relax. The dark witch had seemingly vanished from the face of the Earth, and nobody around her seemed any the wiser about it. Not even Dumbledore, who throughout the entire year made absolutely no mention of the matter. From what little Harriet could understand it seemed like the man was waging war within the Ministry, trying to get them to accept the reality of Voldemort's involvement in Ginny's death.

Sirius' parting words had left an impression with her – and just as Blackie's presence in her life had helped mend her wounds after watching her friend's sister die, Sirius' words gave her an extra push to come to terms with Voldemort's threats and how she should approach the mystery of her headmaster's intentions. And not only did they help her, but it also helped to take Ron's mind off the tragedy. Harriet had told both he and Hermione about Sirius, and they'd agreed to help her investigate what happened.

"So wait a minute," Ron said, his eyes coming alive with a sparkle that Harriet thought would be missing forever. "Sirius told you Scabbers was this Peter Pettigrew man?"

Harriet nodded. "It sounds crazy, but he must be like McGonagall and Sirius. Animagus."

Ron looked a bit pale, but his disbelief was strong.

"Well Ron, let's look at what we know," interjected Hermione. "Scabbers has been missing since Sirius escaped, right?" The redhead nodded. "How long has he been in your family?"

"Let me think, because he's really old… in fact we were surprised he'd survived that long…" Ron murmured. "Twelve years."

"More or less the time since it happened," Hermione said. "It all checks out for now. I mean, average rats live up to three years, and even for a magical rat twelve is a bit weird."

It cost them absolutely nothing to find out about the version published in the media: Sirius Black, who had just betrayed the Potters to Voldemort, cornered poor Pettigrew and not only completely obliterated him, but also killed other twelve people in the nearby street. All that was found of Pettigrew was a severed finger, and all that was found of Black was a cackling mess.

The revelation of Pettigrew's missing finger soon brought another point in favor of Sirius, as Ron confirmed that his pet rat had always had one missing finger from his left paw. Another detail that Hermione had pointed out was the lack of a trial – and thus, lack of an actual look into the facts.

In spite of her initial reticence, she began getting correspondence with her godfather. The man would talk little about himself, preferring to inquire about every detail of Harriet's life ("asking questions as a dog is rather difficult") and to tell her all he could about her parents. She felt herself slowly warming up to the man, as dangerous as it was, wishing more and more that she could find Pettigrew to clear her godfather's name. In her daydreams, she managed to get the Ministry to give Sirius custody of her, finally getting away from the Dursleys.

As a side project, and without consulting her friends (she didn't want to bring up that the idea was originally planted by Voldemort, knowing how they were going to react), she began looking into Dumbledore's life. She realized that while he knew all about her, she had nothing to say about him other than his love for muggle sweets and the strange obsession with criminally ugly robes. But all she could manage to find, other than scholarly articles, was a single article on an old copy of The Prophet about his father's incarceration for attacking some muggles. She found out then that Dumbledore actually had a brother and a sister, and wondered what became of them.

It was actually Madam Pince who told her what she needed to know. His brother's name is Aberforth, Harriet repeated to herself, and his sister's, Ariana. More importantly, she discovered that Aberforth had a rotten relationship with his brother, and was the owner of a shady little pub in Hogsmeade. She decided to try her luck one weekend, and using the cloak and the little map that the twins had given her to cause mischief, she set out to find Aberforth Dumbledore.

The place was dark and dusty, standing obscure and crooked against the image of Madam Rosmerta's The Three Broomsticks. It was still early in the afternoon, a repellant time for the kind that hung around dirty little pubs. Harriet found herself the only figure in the place, a lost little girl in a dilapidated ballroom. Behind the bar, a man with wild white hair and a fixed scowl cleaned some dusty glasses.

"That is one fine invisibility cloak you have there, lad," he grumbled when the door closed behind her. Harriet took her cloak off, earning a surprised gasp from the man. She absent-mindedly noted how his eyes went immediately to her scar, and figured that there was no need for introductions.

"What are you doing here?" he said, suspicious. "Did Dumbledore send you?"

"Uh… sort of," Harriet admitted, sitting in one of the stools in front of the counter. "I want to know more about him. It's just that after last year some things stopped making sense, and I realized that he knew all about me but I knew practically nothing about him."

"And that is the way he prefers it," Aberforth scowled. "You don't trust him anymore," he said, after a while. "You do well."

"I don't know. I want to know if I can trust him," Harriet bit her lip, big green eyes staring up at the aged man. "Can you help me?"

Aberforth looked like he was about to tell her off, but something stopped him. Harriet thought that he looked like he had to force himself not to act on a reflex, and wondered how many people pestered him about his brother when he clearly didn't want anything to do with him.

"Follow me," he said in the end, and walked to a small door on the side. Harriet got up and followed, soon finding herself in a small room. She noted that there was little of interest there, other than a massive portrait of a blonde, smiling girl.

"This is our sister, Ariana," Aberforth told her. "A bright, lively girl. When she was little, three muggles attacked her. She was traumatized, and because of this she would lose control of her magic around strangers."

"This was the reason your father went to Azkaban, right?" Harriet asked. The man nodded.

"Back then there was little consideration for a wizard's mental health. We were all afraid that if we came out with the truth, they'd deem Ariana a risk for the Statue of Secrecy. We thought they'd lock her up to rot in some unknown ward in St. Mungo's, or worse, they'd try to kill her. My father went to Azkaban and died there without saying a word."

"After that it was only the four of us, my mother, Ariana, Albus and I. Albus had always been a precocious, eager child; the star of the family. He got so used to the attention that he began to resent us, because he thought we were a crutch. His family was beneath the great Albus Dumbledore, you see. How could someone with so much talent spend his days taking care of his sister?"

Aberforth's words were laced with resentment. "One of Ariana's episodes ended up killing our mother. Albus was just out of Hogwarts, and had been planning a trip around the world. But we were supposed to take care of her, together, and so he stayed home. Every day, every single day, you could see it in his eyes that he hated being there."

"Eventually we met Bathilda Bagshot's nephew, one Gellert Grindelwald. He was just as brilliant as my brother, and in him Albus found someone who could make him forget about the mundane existence he had been trapped in. They made foolish plans, plans to create a global magical empire, of a paternalist rule of wizards over muggles. Grindelwald enchanted him with tales of old relics, and my brother became obsessed."

"Grindelwald…" Harriet repeated. "Isn't he the man Dumbledore defeated?"

Aberforth let out a derisive laugh. "Ha! It came too late. I confronted him about his plans, I told Albus he couldn't plot to take over the world and care for his sister. You see, this is what everyone seems not to notice about him: he's all for the greater good, so much that he completely forgets about the people around him. The three of us got into an argument and we ended up fighting. Ariana got in the crossfire. Someone's killing curse ended her life," Aberforth sighed. "And a century later, it doesn't seem like he has learned his lesson."

Harriet stared at the old man, feeling like something had just cliqued into place. "I see. Thank you, Aberforth," she said with a small smile. "You've really helped me out."

"I sure hope so. I know what happened last year, and the year before that. I don't doubt that my brother has an amazing ability for strategy. But you're only a child, and he's already setting you up as a warrior in a war you don't have to fight."

"I know," Harriet replied.

Aberforth's words stayed with her for weeks. What Voldemort had hinted at – Dumbledore using her as a pawn in his war against her- was certainly closer to the truth than she'd have liked it to be. What Harriet still didn't understand was the reason for that; like Voldemort had said, there was nothing special about her other than the scar on her forehead. She wasn't brilliant like Grindelwald or Dumbledore or Riddle, she didn't have any sort of special power that could pose a threat for the dark witch. All she understood was that her mother's sacrifice had saved her that night, and that was all.

But, if those yearly trials were some sort of training Dumbledore wanted to put her through, what was it about her that made her a candidate for such? Like Voldemort had said, there was a piece of the puzzle that was still missing. And she was determined to find out what that was.

That's a good question, Harry. Why did Voldemort target you? Well at first, when the idea of them going into hiding was discussed, I thought that it was because of their activities within the Order, Sirius explained in a letter. But then Dumbledore said that it wasn't that Voldemort was looking for them. Her target was you. And that seemed strange to me, so I talked with your father. He told me that the Longbottoms were also being targeted, but Dumbledore seemed to believe that you were more at risk. He said that there was a prophecy involving her and a baby born at the end of July. I don't know the exact details, but I take it that it prophesized a threat to her power. I didn't think much about it at the time, as my main concern was that your parents and you were in danger. Maybe you should try asking Dumbledore himself about it. I know you're cautious about the man, but he wouldn't lie to you.

When Sirius' letter came at the end of March, Harriet had already found about Remus Lupin's friendship with her father. His Defense teacher had confessed it one night after one of their private lessons – something she'd begged for after being attacked by the Dementors guarding Hogwarts during a Quidditch match. In between attempted castings of the Patronus charm - something she eventually mastered (the feeling of soaring high in the air condensed in silver mist taking the form of a deer) - they talked about her school life. It eventually led to the confession ("I used to be good friends with your father") which prompted her to question

"Then you were also friends with Sirius Black."

The words made the affable professor tense. He sighed, his eyes taking a far-away look as he directed his gaze outside the window.

"We were four. Your father, Sirius, Peter Pettigrew and I. We called ourselves the Marauders, and went around doing mischief. Times were different back then. Everything outside the school seemed distant, although we were right in the middle of the first war. A few years later we'd face our own classmates in the battlefield, but right then and there, it was easy to forget about the war and the prejudices."

"I've been asking myself the same question for years," Remus sighed. "Should have any of us noted that Sirius wasn't who he seemed to be?"

Harriet frowned. "Professor, you do know that he didn't stand trial, right?"

Remus looked back at her. "Yes. Nobody wanted to deal with the past once they thought Voldemort gone."

"Yes, but that means there is no actual evidence of him having betrayed my parents. Peter Pettigrew's body wasn't found, only a finger. Last summer when I met the Minister at the Leaky Cauldron he told me they'd checked my wand for the spells I'd described when they investigated Ginny's death. They could've done the same with him, but they didn't. So there is no actual proof that he killed those muggles, that he killed Peter. He doesn't even have a Dark Mark."

"Harriet, what you're saying..." Remus had a pained look in his face. "Nobody sends an innocent man to Azkaban."

The girl didn't back down. "There's a first time for anything. I'll say it – I think Sirius Black is innocent. Forget about what happened for a moment, and think back to your school years. Who, out of the four of you, seemed the most likely to betray the others?"

The professor had paled. Harriet thought that she was perhaps being a bit too cruel, so she added in a softer tone, "Just think about it. I know that it'd be hard for me to think about my memories with Ron and Hermione if one of them betrayed me." Harriet shook her head. "No, I think I'd try not to think about it. But if there was one possibility that one of them had been framed… I think it'd be worth it, feeling the heart ache."

He didn't summon her again until the end of the term. In their last lesson, she mastered the charm and he gave her the Marauder's Map back (after having confiscated it from her following a nightly incursion to the library with Ron and Hermione).

"Since I'm not your professor anymore," he explained. Harriet looked at him in confusion. "I've been thinking about what you said last time. I tried forgetting twelve years of preconceptions and prejudices. What you and the world don't know is that the three of them were animagus – your father transformed into a stag, Sirius into a large black dog, and Peter into a rat. As you said, there is the probability that Peter faked his death. He could've cut his own finger, and fled the scene as a rat. Nobody would've seen him."

Harriet bit her lip. "Then why are you resigning?"

"I need to look into this. I have to find Peter."

Harriet stared at his old, crumbling case with a vacant look. Remus let her think in silence, knowing she was about to make some kind of decision. "I know where Peter's been the whole time," she said, eventually. Remus' eyes widened. "He posed as Scabbers, Ron's pet rat. It checked out. He had a missing finger in his left paw; he'd been with them for twelve years. He disappeared when Sirius escaped Azkaban."

Remus looked at her with suspicion. "How did you know that Peter was an animagus, Harry?"

"Sirius told me."

Remus sighed, and a small smile grazed his face. "Should've known. When did you meet him? During the summer?"

"Yeah," Harriet admitted. "He saved me from a creep on the street, one night. He was in his animagus form, so I thought he was just a dog. I played with him the whole summer, until the night I escaped from the Dursley's after doing accidental magic. Then he transformed into himself and told me who he was. We've kept in contact through letters."

Harriet refused to meet Remus' eyes. "I'm not stupid. I know that he could've lied to me. But if he really was the deranged mass murderer who betrayed my parents, he could've killed me plenty of times. And his story checks out."

"I know," Remus said, after a while. "Now we just have to find proof."

Her third year ended with more questions raised than answers, and the summer before her fourth year would even add more to the list. Voldemort's lack of activity began to concern her, as it made her feel like they were in the eye of the storm, waiting patiently until all hell broke loose. Voldemort's return seemed like a distant, yet tangible thing, and for them it carried a special significance – Harriet could understand Ron's avoidance of the matter, as his sister was involved. She felt like she was conspiring with Hermione to avoid talking of the matter, and for the time it seemed like the sensible thing to do. Thirteen year olds could do so much, and insisting on the issue would only hurt them.

So she didn't mention Voldemort in her letters to her friends, but she talked at length on the matter with Sirius and Remus. Both men had eventually met up after the school year ended, and apparently Remus had been completely swayed to their cause. Lack of news on the Sirius investigation also made both the public and the aurors a bit more relaxed, and they could communicate a bit more freely. They had been hunting Peter down by checking on his remaining (if distant) family and other spots they'd known him to frequent. But Sirius had a sinister suspicion, and it was that Peter had fled in search of his old master, looking for protection against Sirius' vengeance. Old reports had placed Voldemort's wandering spirit somewhere in the forests of Albania, where Quirrel had found her, but with Riddle thrown into the matter, they had no way of knowing where to find her. Remus thought that Riddle must've gone to search for her present self in order to merge with her – he thought that the diary had been a ´memory golem´ of sorts. An entity that could come alive with a sacrifice but wouldn't be complete until it reunited with the soul of its creator.

Harriet didn't really understand the matter in its entirety, but if it really was as Sirius thought and Peter was truly to be found with Voldemort, then the prospect of finally capturing and bringing him to justice was certainly a dim one. This put a damp in her spirits, as her dreams of clearing her godfather's name became more distant. It certainly didn't help that she began experiencing bouts of unexplained anger, followed by a brief headache and an intense prickling in her scar. She told Remus and Sirius about it, fearing that it may be related to Voldemort in some way – and they agreed that it may be a side effect of the rebounded curse, that she was able to feel Voldemort's anger in some way ("although, maybe it's just that you're finally turning into a woman!").

Nevertheless, one summer night in the middle of July brought her more revelations than she could've asked for.

Harriet tossed around in her sleep, strange disconnected images flooding her mind. She was in what had once been a lavishly furnished room in an old manor. What had once been expensive, stylish furniture was now nothing more than rotting wood, a luxury palace for mold and spiders. In spite of the state of her surroundings, the room seemed to be inhabited – a fire was crackling in the fireplace, and there were remains of food and wrappings tossed in the corners. There was a large chair in the middle of the room, and behind it a man was cowering. He was short, plump, and had a face like a rat's –his beady little black eyes tainted with greed and fear.

"Are we really that predictable, Voldemort?" Harriet said with a small chuckle. "Hiding in that muggle's old manor, believing ourselves to be protected by the refusal of the Ministry to acknowledge our return?"

"I was counting on you to find me first," said a high cold voice from behind the chair. Harriet felt a pang of disgust.

"This is unacceptable," she said, her own voice growing colder. "You're but a mere shadow, a pathetic little thing clinging to life. How could you let things become this way?"

Harriet moved closer, sending a look at the disgusting man cowering in the shadow of the armchair. He squeaked, much like the rat he was, and ran outside the room.

"You want to know why I tried to kill the Potter girl," the cold voice spoke, almost in a hiss.

"An explanation would be preferable, yes. After all, I think that we've gone too far in our dealings with magic to be threatened by a baby."

The cold voice let out a sibilant hiss. "One of my Death Eaters witnessed a prophecy being made about me and the girl. 'Born as the seventh month dies, to those that have thrice defied her, they will have the power the Dark Lord knows not…'"

"Is that the full prophecy?"

"It isn't. The rest of it felt of no importance, as I feared that the Order would use a ´prophecy child´ more for propaganda purposes than for their actual power. A lesson was to be taught. How could they dare compare my power to an insignificant child's?"

Harriet casually rested an arm on the top of the armchair. "Yet here we are, Voldemort."

The other voice hissed something under its breath. A snake came slithering into the room, looking menacingly at Harriet for a moment before tasting the air. It backed down brusquely, an almost apologetic look gracing its serpentine features. "I've been using a potion made with Nagini's milk to restore my strength. I have ensured the cooperation of one of my most loyal Death Eaters to have my body restored before next summer."

"I believe that will be unnecessary, dear," said Harriet silkily. "You are certainly not fit to act as the main piece anymore."

"You wouldn't dare."

At this, Harriet let out a cold, piercing laugh. "Oh, do try to stop me. No, dear spare, I shall take your memories and take your place before you become our ruin."

Harriet moved her wand, and the armchair was violently turned to face her. In it, the figure of a disfigured, sickly-looking child glared at her with smoldering red eyes –

Harriet awoke with a gasp, feeling as if her head was splitting open. She pressed a hand to her temple, trying to calm down by breathing slowly. She felt sticky, the small fan she'd managed to salvage from her cousin's room the day they'd installed an air conditioning system was clearly not enough for the hot, humid night. When she felt the pain in her scar dim enough for her to get up and splash some cold water to her face, she got up. She felt something trickle down her legs, and looked down, then back to the bed.

She'd just started her first period.

Her aunt was awoken at dawn that night, with the sound of the washing machine being turned on as Harriet tried to get the blood off the damn sheets before Petunia saw it and threw a fit about it. In a move that surprised both parties involved, the woman said nothing when she came down to the washing room, and simply instructed her how to get the stains off before pointing out there were pads in the bathroom for her to use.

That day she waited until it was dark and Hedwig was back from hunting to pen a letter to her godfather. I had a weird dream last night, she wrote, I think it was a vision. I saw Pettigrew, Voldemort and Riddle. Can we meet somewhere?

She got no reply until her birthday. The world cup, it said.

Harriet thought Amos Diggory's smile was a bit pompous when he kept talking about Cedric's victory over her that one time she almost got her soul sucked out by dementors. His son, however, was a far more sensible boy who showed no small amount of embarrassment at his dad's antics.

"I'm sorry about that," he whispered to her before the portkeys were activated. "No worries," she replied when the Hufflepuff seeker caught her after they landed on the place where the finals for the World Cup would be held.

Ron raised her eyebrows at her while sniggering, which earned him a small scolding by Hermione. Harriet thought they were being weird.

The World Cup was a loud, festive affair that served to take Harriet's mind off Voldemort's affairs for at least a day or two. She had briefly explained to her friends the visions she'd been getting in dreams, and her suspicions regarding their origins. She also told them she'd arranged to meet Sirius and Remus there after the finals to discuss the matter (much to Hermione's chagrin, as the girl thought it imprudent considering Sirius' wanted status).

They also found time to rekindle old rivalries as they met Draco Malfoy and his family in the stands (accompanying a rather apologetic Fudge, who seemed much too glad to see Harriet there). The girl felt Lucius Malfoy's heavy stare on her the whole time, knowing that after what happened during her second year there had been some loose threads between them. She knew, as did Ron and Hermione that it was Lucius who had slipped Riddle's diary to Ginny during their little altercation in Diagon Alley before the start of school, but Harriet wasn't sure whether the man had known of the real value of the object. From what Dumbledore had told her while she was under Madam Pomfrey's care, the man had showed up to talk to the headmaster before making a report of the incident for the board of governors; but his real intention had been to see the state of the diary.

She knew that Lucius was bewildered by her survival. He must've known about Dumbledore's claims of Voldemort's revival, and he must've at least suspected that something within the diary had caused it. He appeared to be reserving judgment, as evidenced by Draco's attitude during her third year (something that surprised not only her but her friends as well – Draco simply ignoring her existence).

The silliness of the festivities was left behind that night after the Irish victory over Bulgaria. While people celebrated outside the stadium, the trio of friends snuck out their tents to meet with Sirius and Remus. It was to be a small, quick affair, as they didn't want to draw attention to themselves or to their companions, but it was enough to make Harriet's heart race at the thought of seeing her godfather again, after such a long time. They met somewhere within the forest, guided by a small scrap of paper with Remus' handwriting in it, detailing the instructions to reach a small clearing. The place was located somewhere near the land's caretaker's cottage, where no wizards had been allowed to camp.

"Harriet, here!" she heard Hermione said as they reached the stump of an old tree. A few feet away, a large black dog was waiting for them, waving its tail happily. From under nearby trees, Remus Lupin stepped out. The girl ran to her godfather and hugged the dog tightly, giggling when he began licking her face. She also greeted Remus with a hug, noting that he looked a bit healthier and happier since the last time she'd seen him.

"Before anything, let me ward the place," asked Remus before taking out his wand and casting several spells around the small clearing. Hermione squeaked a bit every time he chanted something she recognized, and went into bubbly explanations of their workings, earning her a tired sigh from Ron.

"You can change back now, Sirius," said Remus as he put his wand back. Harriet realized that neither Ron nor Hermione had seen him in person until that day, and even though they were as convinced as her of his innocence, they were still unnerved by his appearance. Harriet thought that it was better that they'd met him then instead of a year before – the man had trimmed his hair and his beard, and was wearing nice, clean robes rather than the ragged and dirty Azkaban uniform he had when he met her.

"Merlin, Prongslet, stop growing so fast!" he said with his customary bark-like laugh. "You're making me feel like an old man."

"You are an old man, Siri," Harriet said with a cheeky smile.

"Brat," he replied affectionately. "Well, I think it's better we get down to business. We don't have much time."

"Yes. Harriet, you mentioned in your letters that you had a vision?"

"That was the first one, though," Harriet replied, looking at Remus. "It's always from the same point of view – as if I'm Voldemort herself. I'm looking through her eyes, and it's not only that, but I can feel what she feels, sort of. And I always wake up with my scar hurting."

"So it's not just a dream," Sirius said. The Girl-Who-Lived nodded.

"In the first one, I saw Pettigrew in an old room. It looked like an abandoned manor, and apparently it had some connection to a muggle Voldemort knew because the first thing she said was something like it was obvious they'd hide in that muggle's manor."

"That's…" Remus murmured. "I remember some Order members talking about her origins. Dumbledore spent some time researching Voldemort's past, to understand her better. He thought at the time that one of her parents must've been non-magical."

Ron snorted. "That'd make her such a hypocrite, though. Goes around telling people muggle folk are scum, when she's the daughter of one."

"It would make sense, if you think about it," Hermione said. "Maybe she had such a bad experience with her parents that she started hating muggles because of it."

"Or maybe she was just a bastard from the start," muttered Harriet. "Anyways, she was really disgusted with the other Voldemort, and she wanted to know what happened when she tried to kill me. Voldemort tells her about the prophecy, and it was just as you said Sirius. Born as the seventh month dies, to those who defied her three times, who has a power she doesn't know. It made her mad, so she targeted me because she wanted to set an example or something. That was the gist of it. She didn't want the Order to use the prophecy child as propaganda."

"So she set out to kill you just to show her power? That's bloody crazy," the redhead exclaimed.

"Riddle seemed to think the same. Voldemort told her that she'd been feeding on her pet snake to grow stronger, and was already making plans to get her body back. She said she had made contact with an old follower. But then Riddle laughed and told her that she wasn't fit to be the 'main piece', whatever that means. She said she'd take her memories. It didn't seem like she wanted to merge with Voldemort, more like she was going to get rid of her and take her place."

"This is troubling," Remus said. "Riddle must be more than what we thought she was. She has to be Voldemort then, she must have Voldemort's powers."

"A piece of her soul, perhaps?" Sirius suggested. "It's dark, forbidden magic. The kind that's right up her alley."

"You mean she sliced her own soul? How's that even possible?" asked Hermione.

"I don't know," Sirius sat down on the tree stump, frowning at the trees behind them. "What else did you see, Harriet?"

"Nothing as revealing as that," the girl replied. "I had another two dreams, but they were shorter. In one of them, she told Wormtail – Pettigrew- to take care of the muggle who lived outside the manor. He was called Frank, that's all I could get. Then I dreamt of a shack at the edge of some town. I think I could see a manor from the distance, and I think it was the same manor where Riddle and Voldemort were in the first dream. She was searching for something, going through the rubble. I woke up before I could see anything else."

Remus frowned. "Did you see Voldemort in any of those dreams?"

Harriet shook her head. "No. In the second dream, I saw myself – Riddle- sitting on the armchair where Voldemort had been," she paused for a moment. "Maybe she's already taken care of that other piece of her soul, if that's what she is."

"Well, it's a good thing we don't have to deal with two You-Know-Who, right?"

Hermione looked at Ron. "But maybe we're going to deal with someone saner, and more powerful than the You-Know-Who that tried to kill Harry. She did tell you that she'd use you to get to Dumbledore, right?"

The girl nodded, biting her lips. "From what I can tell, old Voldemort was more… reckless, I guess. She seemed like the kind to shoot first, ask questions later. Riddle, on the other hand, prefers to observe, even when she's angered. If it'd been Voldemort in the Chamber, she would have killed me."

"I see," murmured Remus. He looked pensive, shifting his eyes from Sirius' face to Harriet's. "I think it's time we get Dumbledore involved," he said. The Girl-Who-Lived looked at him warily, and the man acknowledged her reticence with a nod. "I know your thoughts on the matter, Harry, but now that we know for sure that Pettigrew is at Voldemort's side, we can't just keep moving on our own. Things have become far more complicated."

"He's right," Sirius piped in. "I don't really trust him anymore than you do, Prongslet, but we need to act together."

"I understand," the girl acquiesced. She opened her mouth to speak again when they heard the sound of an explosion going off somewhere near. It was oddly distorted, the girl noted, and figured it had to do with the wards Remus had put on before.

"That doesn't sound like healthy World Cup celebrations to me," Sirius said, and quickly changed into his animagus form. Remus took out his wand, and made a gesture at the three teenagers.

"You need to get back to your tents, right now," he said, looking at the source of the noise, then back at Sirius. "Take the portkey back, Padfoot, I'll escort them," Sirius barked angrily.

Harriet put a hand over her godfather's muzzle, "please, Blackie. We'll be fine with Remus."

Padfoot whined again, but her goddaughter's stern expression ended up convincing him. He marched back to the edge of the clearing, stealing glances at them from time to time. Harried waved sadly at him, while her friends got their wands out. Remus gestured for them to follow him, and they started running through the woods.

A cacophony of screams began to reach them in a crescendo – some of them joyful, others confused, others fearful. Little stolen glances revealed men in dark hoods, with their faces covered, marching among the tents with a grotesque display of arabesques above them. Harriet paled when she heard Ron mutter, "Death Eaters".

They slowed down when they reached the main camp, and it was then that Harriet thought she heard a small scream. Almost like a reflex, she turned back, holding her wand above her to light the darkened space between the trees in front of her. She saw a small shimmer a few feet away, something extremely familiar to her.

There was someone under an invisibility cloak in the trees.

With her wand held tightly in her hands, she took a few steps forward. "I know you're here," she said, loud enough for the figure to hear. She waited a nerve-wracking moment before advancing further.

"Little girls should stay close to their friends when they run through dark woods," a voice said, and the shimmer was seen again, with a man emerging from the shadows under it. Harriet barely had the time to register the little body of a House Elf under him before the man grabbed her by the throat.

"What do we have here?" he said, licking his lips. His eyes looked deranged, unhinged by some unknown madness that made her skin crawl. His face looked like it'd aged before its time, his cheeks were hollow and his hair was graying prematurely. Harriet felt repulsed by him. "Harriet Potter, aren't you?"

The little girl swung her legs and managed to land a kick near the man's groin. Surprised by her attack, he dropped her and staggered backwards. "You little piece of shit-" he growled, and slashed his wand in a motion that seemed all-too-familiar to Harriet.

She managed to avoid the Cruciatus curse aimed at her, and leveled him with her own disarming spell. The man's wand went flying to the side, sending him into a rage. He stalked forward like a mad beast, yelling "I'm going to fucking flail you alive, bitch!" Harriet's eyes widened in fear, and she tried to put some distance between them. "I'm going to rip your intestines out, gouge your eyes out and fuck the shit out of whatever's left of you then."

He came at her with a mad, wild rage; like a bull that was about to stomp over a matador. Without thinking, she did the first thing that came to her mind and aimed a cutting hex at him – which went straight to his face. The impact sent him backwards, blood spraying everywhere as his throat was ripped open and his face was turned into a mess of teeth, flesh and bone.

Harriet fell to her knees as she heard the man wheezing painfully for air – it was a sound not unlike the dragging of nails on a chalkboard, dry and sharp as it cut through the night like the finest blade. Her eyes locked into his body as it shuddered and eventually surrendered itself to its fate. She heard more screaming in the distance and the muffled sound of approaching footsteps.

"Bloody hell…" someone said.

"What the hell happened here?" another voice said, with a commanding air. "Isn't that Harriet Potter?"

At that, Harriet felt her eyes water. Before she knew it she was sobbing uncontrollably. She felt numb, detached from the whole thing. She couldn't control her body at all. People tried to speak to her, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. And she could feel the fear she'd felt, she could still see the dark promises in the madman's eyes, and her sobs would grow heavier, more desperate.

She felt a hand on her shoulder; she could smell a musky, earthy scent she recognized all-too-well, and she held onto Remus for dear life. He whispered comforting words in her ears, strong arms circling her and grounding her enough to calm down.

"Harry, what happened?" he asked her.

"I-I heard a small scream while we were walking, and I stopped to see where it c-came from," she said, slowly getting her voice under control. "I saw a shimmer of light, the kind that invisibility cloaks make. I went in to see who it was, and… and he came out, there was the body of a small elf under him…"

"Winky," someone whispered.

"He grabbed me by the throat, and I kicked him to get him away from me. He tried to put me under the Cruciatus, but I ducked, and I disarmed him. That made him real mad. He charged at me and I-I p-panicked, and I sent a c-c-cutting curse at him, oh god… I'm so sorry…"

"I wouldn't be that sorry," a man said, and Harriet took off her glasses to wipe her eyes. He had the purple robes of an auror, and was looking at her with gentle eyes. "He had the Dark Mark in his left arm. Merlin knows what he could've done to you if you hadn't defended yourself."

Harriet snuck a glance at the body lying a few feet from her. His left arm was in a strange, crooked position, but she could see parts of the distinctive tattoo on his skin. She swallowed.

"Well, what do you expect, if the girl goes on her own like that…"

Remus growled in the direction of the man who had spoken: a stern-looking Ministry official with a dark, silver-streaked moustache. "You should reserve any comments you might want to make for when you explain to the Wizengamot what was your supposedly incarcerated, dead son doing in the World Cup next to your house elf, Crouch."

The auror looked sharply in Crouch's direction, then back to Remus. "What are you saying, Lupin?"

"I can smell him clear as the day. That man is Barty Crouch Jr."

"What do you say, werewolf?" shot back the father in question. "Do you honestly believe the nonsense you're saying?"

"Crouch, that is enough. Lupin, you should take Potter to her tent while we deal with this mess," the Auror looked down to her, a reassuring smile in his face. "We might need to formally take your declaration later, miss. Hopefully in a few days. Do you understand?"

Harriet nodded. "Yeah. It's okay."

The auror nodded, and she let Remus escort her back to the Weasleys' tent.

She didn't dream that night, or the nights following the incident at the World Cup. According to Remus, the ruckus had been started by a group of Death Eaters who had marched through the encampment setting fire to the tents, holding the muggle family of the camp's caretaker hostage above their menacing figures. Aurors quickly dispersed them, but nobody was apprehended.

Harriet didn't know if Barty Crouch Jr. was part of the group, but after listening to the story behind the Crouch family from Mrs. Weasley, she was pretty sure that he'd been on his own. A loyal follower of Voldemort who'd been imprisoned after the attack on Neville's family, he'd been sent to Azkaban following a short trial. According to her, Barty's father had been right on the path to become Minister, thanks to the draconian tendencies of his measures during the First War. His son being trialed for being a madly loyal Death Eater had certainly ruined his entire career. Harriet thought that would explain the bitter character of the man, although not his harboring of his supposedly dead son.

It wasn't until the aurors called on her to give her statement about the incident that she was privy to the entire story.

"He told us that he did it for his dead wife," Kingsley Shackelbolt, the kind auror who'd been so considerate with her the night of the attack, explained to her. "She was consumed with sadness after Barty Jr.'s incarceration, and knowing she was about to die, asked him to help her switch places with her son."

"So the body in Azkaban belongs to Crouch's wife?"

"Yes. His father kept him locked up in his home, most of the time under the Imperius curse. He had his house elf, Winky, take care of the boy."

Harriet's eyes widened when she remembered the little house elf. "How is she?"

"She's doing all right. He just stunned her the moment he managed to throw off the Imperius."

The girl bit her lip. "What's going to happen to Crouch Sr.?"

Shackelbolt shook his head. "We don't know. He helped a Death Eater escape from prison, he used an Unforgivable, and he's a Ministry official. I'd be surprised if he wasn't given the Kiss."

The girl looked to the ground. They were in an adjacent room to the main courtroom, where the Wizengamot was going through the formalities of the procedure. Harriet could hear muffled voices, and then a chorus of surprised exclamations when the entrance doors opened. She assumed Crouch had taken the stand.

"Kingsley, can I ask you a question?" she said suddenly, her mind elsewhere. "It has absolutely nothing to do with this."

"Go ahead," the man said.

"I was told that there's a room in the Ministry where they keep a record of all the prophecies ever told. If someone was the subject of that prophecy, could they request the Ministry a copy of that record?"

Kingsley's eyebrows shot up high into his forehead, and he leaned back a little. His big round eyes looked to the door for a moment before he spoke. "That's Unspeakable territory, so I'm not entirely familiar with the proceedings. But I think it can be done."

The door opened and a head popped up. "Your turn, Potter," the auror said, and both Harriet and Shacklebolt got up.

Harriet fixed her gaze on Dumbledore's phoenix the moment she entered his office, remembering the last time she'd been there. The bird sang prettily when it noticed her staring, and she took it to be a greeting of sorts. She answered with a wave of her hand.

"Good night, headmaster," she greeted the old man, taking the seat he was offering to her. "I assume I'm here because you spoke with Remus, right?"

"You assume correctly, Harriet. I confess I had my suspicions that your mysterious pen pal last year was no other than Mr. Black, if only because of the mere impossibility of it. Nevertheless it was a surprise when Remus spoke with me."

"Do you believe he's innocent?" the girl asked bluntly.

"Any doubts I might have about his duplicity were assuaged by yours and your friends' excellent health throughout the summer. I daresay, had he been in cohorts with Voldemort, he'd have taken his chance already."

"Pettigrew's alive, though. That's proof enough."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows, eyes glinting behind his spectacles. "Oh yes, those visions of yours. Remus described them in detail to me. I have to thank you, Harriet, for they provided me with information I wasn't privy to and which is of vital importance if we want to act quickly."

His voice turned grave. "However, I can't say that I'm not concerned about this mental link between the both of you."

"That makes two of us."

"Excellent. There are, of course, ways to protect a wizard's, or witch's mind. One of such techniques is called Occlumency, and I shall admit that, although it's relatively unknown, it's a very useful skill to have," the Headmaster said in a lighter voice. "I could arrange for you to take lessons with a master Occlumens."

"I'd appreciate that, headmaster," Harriet replied, with a small smile of her own.

"Very well. I'll send for you later in the week to meet him," Dumbledore paused for a moment, regarding her intently. "Harriet, if you'll pardon the bluntness, how are you coping?"

The girl's eyes widened. He'd caught her off guard. "T-that's a bit of… what do you mean?"

"You watched a man die by your hand. Accidental as it was, I can only imagine the effects it must have on a young girl's mind."

Harriet looked down to her hands, remembering the small drops of Barty's blood staining her fingers that night. "Sometimes I dream Ginny's standing outside the window of the Gryffindor common room. She's screaming, but I can't hear her. When I try to reach for her, I notice my hands are dripping blood, and I hear someone gurgle near my feet. When I look down, I see his face just like I left it then."

She raised her stare. "I don't feel bad about it. I don't feel anything, actually. I just can't stop thinking about the fear I felt when he came towards me. It wasn't like when I faced Riddle down in the Chamber, when I fought the basilisk. Then it was sort of ritualistic, like I knew the motions I was supposed to do. I wasn't afraid of death. But that night, I lost it, and I'm not entirely sure why- the fear was more primal, like it wasn't just death that was coming, but unspeakable horror. Like he could tear my soul apart."

Dumbledore let out a weary sigh. "I fear dark times are coming. I wish I could assure you of the improbability of such a scenario ever happening again, but even for all my good-wishing, I am powerless to stop the wheel of fate as it turns."

Harriet nodded. The old wizard continued, "As you must know, the Ministry is flat-out refusing to acknowledge Voldemort's return. In that front, I fear that she might be gaining the upper hand."

"As you correctly told Remus, we are facing a rejuvenated Voldemort. Even if she has managed to acquire her older self's memories, she has the sharpness and the vitality of the youth Voldemort had left behind. It is true that the incarnation you faced before had been consumed, at least partly, by the madness of her years as a spirit. It is equally as true that Cecilia will act in a more restrained, calculated manner. And I understand that this causes you no small amount of anxiety."

"I must ask you, Harriet, not to do anything reckless. Do not go looking for her. My wish was to keep you from this as much as I could, but the present seems to have different plans in mind. But I still wish for you to live as normally as you can."

The girl offered a small, crooked smile. "I understand. I… wasn't planning on going to Voldemort for a fight. But I did want to get Pettigrew."

"Do not worry about that, dear girl. We'll take care of it."

It turned out that Harriet's teacher was to be none other than Severus Snape. To say that Harriet was displeased by the arrangement was an understatement, but she figured she had little choice. She definitely didn't like the idea of Voldemort rummaging around her head any more than her headmaster did.

The lessons proved to be a challenge. More than once she gritted her teeth trying not to hex the man. The constant belittling, particularly when he reached sensitive memories, she felt unnecessary and distracting – she tried to put up with it for a while. Then she could take no more.

"Can you stop doing that?" she almost shouted one day, after he'd withdrawn from her mind.

"That is the point of my wasting my time with you in the first place, Potter," he said with an arched eyebrow.

"I'm talking about the unnecessary comments you feel you have to make every time you get into my mind," she spat, and with an afterthought she added, "Sir. It's distracting, and it's already bad enough that I have to let you of all people see all that stuff."

"Potter, I assure you that I have higher aspirations than watching a fourteen year old's memories. If my comments are so distracting, do try to concentrate enough to block my intrusion next time."

In spite of his dismissal of her complaining, he did stop with his sarcastic commentary after that. And just as Harriet had thought, she actually began to make progress (not only to her amazement, but to Snape's as well). In a relatively short time she was able to put a shaky barrier between the man and her thoughts, one that wouldn't hold long enough for any direct legilimens attack, but that could at least mask her surface thoughts.

"Harriet, did he ask you to the ball?"

The girl looked up from her half-finished essay. Both Parvati and Lavender had taken a seat in front of her and were leaning towards the table, carefully watching her reaction with matching coy smiles in their faces.

"Who are you talking about?"

"Why, Cedric of course!" Exclaimed the blonde girl in a fit of giggles.

Harriet scratched her head. "I… uh, he knows I already have a date."

Both girls' mouths fell open in shock. "Seriously?" exclaimed Patil. "Who?"

"We agreed it'd be best not to tell. Too much buzz. Sorry."

"Mysterious," said Hermione as came over and sat next to her friend. The two other girls looked at the frizzy-haired girl with a knowing look, but said nothing and left.

"What was that?" Harriet asked.

"The look they gave me?" Hermione smiled, pulling out her books from her bag. The other girl nodded. "They know I have a date for the ball as well."

Harriet giggled. "Are you going to leave me in the dark?"

"Maybe. You're certainly not saying anything about yours."

"Fair enough."

"Although it's weird," Hermione commented. "I thought that he'd ask you the moment they announced the ball, with you two playing Quidditch for those friendly matches."

"Well it's not like we're alone, you know," Harriet shrugged. "Plus he also has the tasks for the tournament in mind. Probably he asked another girl before."

"He doesn't strike me as that kind of guy. He really likes you, you know."

Harriet gave her a nervous, crooked smile. "I know."

"That… mate, that isn't fair at all," Ron said when Harriet arrived at the entrance of the Great Hall with her date to the Ball. Cho giggled at the redhead's expression. "I thought you were better than that, stealing the girls from us."

"Don't worry Ron; she'll dump me the moment I step on her toes while we're waltzing."

"You've already stepped on them enough," said the girl. "You're lucky that you're cute, it makes it easier to forgive you."

Harriet blushed, looking to her side. Next to her Parvati was looking at her with a surprised stare. Her friend, however, was frowning at her. She paid them no mind.

"Have you seen Hermione?" she asked Ron. The redhead's face went a bit sour. He'd had a fight with her friend after he'd tried asking her for the ball as a last resort.

"She's right there, Harry," Cho pointed her out in the crowd. She was near the staircases, and was talking animatedly with none other than Viktor Krum, Durmstrang's Champion.

"Ah, bless her heart," Harriet exclaimed. "Her date is Krum!"

The revelation of just who was Hermione's date surprised everyone, but most of all Ron, who wouldn't stop watching them with an angry expression as they waltzed around the place. Harriet felt the evening was too pretty to have it ruined by Ron's pettiness (she'd also felt insulted for Hermione at the insensitivity of the redhead), and so spent most of the time chatting and drinking with Cho.

She'd only noticed the girl the year before, during a particularly strenuous joint practice with the Ravenclaw team. A big storm had unfolded, and the winds escalated until it simply wasn't safe to stay on the air, so Madam Hooch had canceled the rest of the practice and had ushered them into the lockers to have a warm shower. Up until then there'd been a lot on Harriet's mind to really think about her love life, but she noticed right then and there as she changed with the rest of the girls in the room that she'd been staring at Cho for longer than was considered friendly.

She'd kept it to herself, as she'd thought it'd been a fluke, but the weeks after that she began noticing that there was something about girls in general that made her feel strange. She'd always assumed that she'd find a boy to fell in love with and do all the things that couples do, as it was what she'd seen all her life. When Cedric began flirting with her at the beginning of the year she even began going through the motions she'd been taught all her life to do – giggle, coy smile, starry eyes, kiss kiss. But after sharing a kiss with the older boy, Harriet knew something was not right – Cedric was handsome, she could see that. He was a great guy, very compassionate, very kind. But she felt the hardness of his chest against her and found herself wishing for something softer.

She panicked a bit when she realized she might very well be a lesbian. Throughout her life, the Dursleys had made an extensive list of all the things considered freakish in their household, and homosexuality was right within the top ten. It wasn't that she'd acquired the same prejudice (after all, the Dursleys hating something was reason enough for her to like it), but it certainly put her on edge about the matter, as she assumed that most (normal) people shared the sentiment.

It certainly didn't help that at the same time she was beginning to discover her sexuality, Cho began making passes at her. She figured it had something to do with Cedric, who was good friends with the girl, and she felt both exasperated and grateful at the boy.

In spite of their frequent heated glances, their shared walks along the Lake, the ushered whispers they spoke at each other in the hallways, the only one to ever notice was the one she'd expected the least.

"Mate, I didn't know you swung that way," Ron told her one day while they were lazing around outside the castle. Harriet felt herself pale. "Ah- don't worry about it, I haven't told anyone. I know it's a touchy subject."

"Uh… yeah, I wanted to tell you guys but… I don't know, it's all very recent for me. I found out this year."

"Well, I could see it coming from a mile away, mate. You've never looked at a bloke twice. But Cho walks by, and you eat her up with your eyes. Definitely gay as they come."

"I guess," Harriet smiled nervously.

She purposively evaded the matter with both Sirius and Remus as much as she'd done with her friends – she wanted to be completely sure that she was comfortable with her identity before coming out to them.

Understandably, her appearance with Cho at the ball made people stare. Hermione made her way to them with a surprised smile, even if she seemed a bit miffed that Harriet hadn't told her about her crush on the older girl. She reassured her friend that she was okay with it, and asked her with a bit of cheek if they'd kissed yet. To Harriet's embarrassment, Cho laughed and replied that they had already done the romantic tour around the castle. To avoid further shame, the Girl-Who-Lived dragged her date to the garden outside the Great Hall, telling her she wanted to be away from prying eyes for a moment.

"It seems like we're not the only ones," murmured Cho when she caught sight of Severus Snape walking alongside Durmstrang's headmaster.

"I know you've been feeling it too, Severus," the dark man whispered intently. Cho looked at her questioningly, and Harriet shrugged. She understood her reservation – after all, Karkaroff didn't seem like a man with particularly innocent secrets. "It's been flaring up, getting darker…"

"Not here, Karkaroff," Snape replied with annoyance.

"You know she's going to come back," the other man continued, nervously. "She's going to call us all – and when she does…"

Snape grabbed Karkaroff's hand before he showed him the skin on his left arm. "Aren't you afraid?" the Durmstrang headmaster asked.

"What I might feel is irrelevant. You should make plans to leave now, Karkaroff, unless you feel like explaining your extended leave of absence to her."

A giggle was heard on the other side of the garden. Snape sent one last look at the man beside him and stalked forward in direction of the noise. Karkaroff watched him leave, turned on his heel, and went back to the Great Hall.

"What was that?" murmured Cho. Harriet frowned, having a good idea of what had been discussed, took the older girl by the hand and led her to sit beside her on a stone bench.

"Cho, you know how I told you some time ago that I'm always getting in trouble and how being seen with me may not be good for you in the long run?"

The Asian girl's eyes widened, and she nodded. Harriet looked at her for a moment, unsure as to how she should break the news. "Voldemort's back," she whispered. Cho shuddered, whether it was because of the revelation or the name she couldn't tell. Her face gained a certain edge, and Harriet took it as her cue to continue.

"It happened at the end of my second year. The Ministry forbid us to come out and say the culprit was Voldemort herself, but the whole Chamber fiasco had been set up by her in order to regain her body."

"Karkaroff used to be a Death Eater," she said quietly. "But he betrayed the identities of many within the group to gain immunity after her disappearance. He knows that if she comes into power again, she'll have him hunted down."

"And Snape knows about him…?"

"Snape was a Death Eater as well."

Cho's expression turned into one of bewilderment. "I don't think Dumbledore would let him teach here if that was the case."

"Officially he was absolved from all charges," Harriet said, thinking back to what Sirius had warned her about the man. "But who knows what goes through his mind."

Cho didn't seem convinced of her words. "Think about it," Harriet said, and changed the topic.

Fourth year came and went with an unexpected Hogwarts victory in the Triwizard Tournament. Cedric, who'd qualified as the worst champion in the previous two tasks, managed to solve the maze and reach the cup in record time, to everyone's amazement.

Harriet enjoyed her on and off relationship with Cho, as she didn't think that with Voldemort looming in the background she could afford to commit herself to a relationship. She'd gained a brief five-minute spotlight when Rita Skeeter had written an entire article about her "scandalous" relationship with another female student – the reactions to that being from mildly amused on her godfather's part ("if half of it is true, then Harriet I must say you definitely take after your father"), to slightly disappointed (Mrs. Weasley had expressed her disappointment at the reveal since she'd wanted her to marry one of her boys), to outright disgusted (Lavender Brown made an scandal one morning in the Common Room when she asked McGonagall to give her another room, as she didn't want to share one with a "dyke"). Overall, the people who mattered had been extremely supportive of her, and she felt immensely thankful for that.

She could also count as a small victory her progress in Occlumency. As Snape had scathingly told her in her last lesson, her mind would be as easy to read as a muffin recipe the moment Voldemort had her eyes on her, but at least she could rest assured that she would no longer be dreaming about the woman. She was so happy to get rid of him for the summer that she even thanked him for the lessons before going on her merry way (and she locked her green eyes on his black, merciless ones, and saw a spark of something miraculous inside of them).

It all was going great until she arrived at the King Cross' station. Hermione bid a quick goodbye to her and Ron, as she and her parents had a plane to catch a couple of hours later, promising to write as much as she could. The Weasleys, on the other hand, waited with her for the appearance of her uncle.

"You could always call on Remus," Ron said, after an hour of waiting.

"I don't want to bother him," Harriet shrugged. "I'll just take a cab."

So strange luggage in hand she bid goodbye to the Weasleys (with Mr. Weasley winking at her, saying "don't worry Harriet, you'll see us sooner than you think!") and paid for what would be the most expensive commuting of her life. The car quickly reached Surrey, but had to slow down when it approached Privet Drive.

"Bloody hell, what happened here?" exclaimed the cabby at the sight. Harriet paled and asked him to stop before getting out. She could hear approaching sirens in the distance, and a few cries from the neighbors who were just approaching the street. In front of her raged an inferno, flames twisting and turning above the ground as the once pristine suburban houses were engulfed by the ire of the elements. She could see, from a distance, some bodies lying in the grass – pools of blood drawing macabre figures in the sidewalk.

She didn't think about what she was doing as she approached number four. Out of the entire street, it was clear that it was the one that had suffered the most damage – its walls had crumbled and the roof had been partially blown off. In the front garden laid three corpses – aunt Petunia, uncle Vernon, cousin Dudley. Unlike their neighbors, it seemed like they'd received the most merciful of deaths – they had the unseeing staring eyes of those murdered by the Killing Cure.

She felt tears coming to her eyes. A scream caught in her throat as she noted a strange flower arrangement above her aunt's head. It was a crown of red roses, intertwined with what seemed to be poison ivy. On the grass, right next to it, there was a card, which she carefully removed.

Think of it as gift for your accomplishments in Occlumency. – LV.

The room was dark except for the glistening tears that fell from her eyes. Her body was still; she had no strength left. She'd cried her heart out when the police took her to the station, when they tried to ask her what had happened. She couldn't explain it to them, not only because they wouldn't understand, but because she could barely grasp the horrendous image of the bodies of her family lying still, eyes open to the starless sky.

She didn't have to wait long until Remus appeared with Dumbledore and Shacklebolt to his side. The sight of the robed, extravagant wizards was certainly sobering in a strange way, and she found somewhat comforting the sight of its wizardly otherworldness against the starch dry decoration of the muggle office. The policemen's surprise was quickly amended with a well-placed Confundus charm, and she was whisked away among disjointed conversations and missing reports. This was not theirs to deal.

She wouldn't be able to remember the exact sequence, but at some point she was given a scrap of paper with an address on it, and from inside the dark line between one house and the other in a shady little place called Grimmauld Place a petit chateau appeared. She was ushered to the kitchen (dirty, old, crumbling kitchen), and had a cup of tea thrust between her hands. She simply looked up to her headmaster's face and said "Sirius."

The man was at the door in a moment – the master of the decaying house looking bright and sharp as he approached her with a distraught expression. He took her in his arms and whispered comforting words as she began sobbing once again. She hid her face in his robes and waited until she thought her heart calm down. The strain of the evening had left her in a hazy daze – and she felt odd for a moment, as if she wasn't really there.

She realized that, crumpled in her hands, she still held Voldemort's greeting card.

"Weren't the wards supposed to protect them?" she whispered, turning around to face her headmaster.

"Within the confines of the house, yes," replied Dumbledore in a voice heavy with mourning. "And even outside of them, had the wards been at their strongest."

"Today was the lowest point, right?"

The old wizard nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"It seems like they waited for your aunt to go out to take her," explained Shacklebolt, as he entered the small room. Up until then he'd stayed in the hallway, trying not to interrupt the emotional, personal moment. Harriet found herself incredibly grateful for that. "After her death, the wards fell and the entire block was exposed."

Harriet stood up, and walked up to Dumbledore, handing him the little slip of paper in her hands. "She put a crown of roses on my aunt's head. This was next to it."

The headmaster frowned at the elegant, flowery handwriting. Remus, who was next to him, was able to read it, his face darkening with anger.

"This was retaliation," he said.

"No…" Harriet said, pensively. He mind was drawn back to the gory images of her neighbor's bodies, the immaculate perfection of her family's cadavers in stark comparison. "It's… strange, but I don't think that was the idea."

"What do you mean?" asked Sirius.

"Well, first, that the bodies…" she swallowed, trying to compose herself before she started crying again. "The neighbors were massacred. My family was just killed with a killing curse. As far as I'm concerned, that's considered mercy in Voldemort's vocabulary. Then the card and the roses. And the dark mark, the dark mark was nowhere to be seen."

Shackelbolt nodded. "It is true that it doesn't fit her modus operandi. This was a bit more theatrical. She was announcing herself to the world."

"At least now the Ministry will acknowledge she's back," Sirius said.

"Yet it also indicates that she has managed to gain enough support to withstand whatever offensive they might concoct against her," added Albus, pensively, as his eyes came to rest upon Harriet. "Although, it is my belief that there was but only one intended target to her message."

"The Order," Remus said. Harriet looked at him with a confused expression.

"The Order of the Phoenix," Auror Shacklebolt explained. "An independent group created solely to fight You-Know-Who."

Harriet hummed. The tears in her eyes had dried, and she felt them puffy and swollen. She wanted to lie in her bed and simply go to sleep. "What happens now?"

"You'll stay here," Sirius said. "We haven't finished with the arrangements, but it's currently the safest place for you to stay."

"Whose house is this?"

"Mine," said her godfather with a rueful smile. "My family's. As you can see, it hasn't seen a good dusting in a lot of time, but the idea is to fix it up so it can be used as an HQ of sorts for the Order."

"Does this mean I'll be staying here with you?" she said in a small voice, her eyes suddenly glinting. The man looked at her, bewildered, before a huge boyish smile took over his face.

"Yeah."

"I'm staying here as well," said Remus, and Harriet's eyes grew warmer. "And the Weasleys will be staying here for a few weeks later on, to help with things."

To say that Harriet was comforted by that was a bit of an understatement. She'd feared, in some irrational place in her mind that they'd leave her alone in some unknown, inhospitable place while she mourned her family. The prospect of knowing that she'd wake up every day to share the same roof as the people she loved the most gave her no small amount of hope.

"I think we have imposed on young Harriet enough," Dumbledore said. "I believe that she needs a good rest now."

"I agree," Sirius got up and walked up to his goddaughter, putting an arm around her as he led her out of the room. "I'll show you to your room, all right?"

A shadow had come over her godfather's eyes the moment his eyes had been set upon the room, and Harriet wondered what sort of memories he had of the place. She knew she didn't know much about his home life, as he preferred to talk about his school days, or his adventures with the Marauders. But he'd tell her, eventually. It was a matter of place and time.

She sat on the old bed – Sirius had casted a few cleaning spells on it after apologizing profusely ("I wasn't planning on using this room at all, but as it is, it's the cleanest one"), so the sheets were stiff and had a strange, barely metallic smell. But they were clean, and the bed was more comfortable than her own. And that was enough for her.

As she took off her shoes, she couldn't help but take a good look at the dimly-lit bedroom. It was smartly furnished, if a bit dated. The headboard of the bed was decorated with intricate designs, carved in the dark, polished wood. She could see some chairs next to the window which seemed to follow the same style. There was a wardrobe a foot away from her, and she could see that its doors were ajar.

She thought there was nothing inside, but the moment she moved to take her jacket off she saw a metallic glint. She opened the wardrobe fully, narrowing her eyes to see more clearly.

"This must be an heirloom," Harriet whispered as she took the small locket inside. From what she could see, it was a fancy little thing. Tastefully ornamented, with what appeared to be emerald gemstones spelling an 'S'. It gave her a weird feeling, almost like a nostalgic déjà vu. It was just like when she was a small child and she'd look at the world outside from the window of her uncle's car the precious few times she would be allowed to go anywhere with them. She'd stare at the porches of the houses, the picturesque suburban facades, and she'd imagine herself living a normal life with a loving family. And she'd daydream so vividly, that she almost felt it was a memory from a distant past.

She found herself in front of the dirty mirror in the back of the wardrobe's door, putting the locket on. She stared at it from a moment, sighed, and went to bed.

The next day she was woken up by Sirius' angry voice. She put her glasses hurriedly, almost frightened, thinking that something had happened before realizing he was shouting at a small, sour-looking elf.

"Regulus doesn't live here anymore, Kreacher," the man spat. "And you will respect Harriet."

"Sirius? What happened?"

His godfather made an exasperated, angry noise at the elf in front of him. "I heard a ruckus coming from here so I ran to see if you were okay. I found Kreacher here throwing things around. He's my mother's house elf."

"The blood-traitor son of Kreacher's mistress has a mudblood thief for a goddaughter," the elf murmured under his breath. "Kreacher came to find his master's precious treasure, and it was gone."

Harriet knew that the elf was talking about the locket, but she didn't feel inclined to admit that it was hanging from her neck, hidden under her oversized shirt. The elf's words and behavior repelled her, and she reasoned that the little creature could go without the locket for a few days. It's in Sirius' house anyways, she thought, so it belongs to him. And he won't mind if I keep it around for a few days. I can give it back to him later.

"What is he talking about?" she said, sleepy eyes covering for her lie.

"Who knows. This used to be my younger brother's bedroom, which is why I didn't want anyone here. Kreacher practically worshipped the ground he walked on, so I think he became obsessed with all the belongings he left."

Harriet looked at her godfather. "Were the two of you close?"

Sirius looked a bit taken aback at the question, but after a while he shook his head. "No. We were nothing alike. He was the son my mother wanted, I was a black sheep. He believed in all the pureblood crap, I didn't."

"What happened to him?"

"He became a Death Eater. He was killed a few years after leaving Hogwarts."

"By Aurors?"

"No. Voldemort had him killed. I don't know the specifics."

Harriet bit her lip, thinking of the tragedy of a family that was separated by beliefs before realizing that in a way, it was her story with the Dursleys all over again. Sirius was a blood-traitor to his family and she was a freak to hers – their pure fanatical thinking becoming more important than their own blood.

"Let's go get some breakfast," she said, getting out of bed.

"How are you feeling?" Remus asked her. She took a sip of her Earl Grey and thought for a moment before replying.

"Sad. Content. I don't know. They were horrible people, but they didn't deserve that."

"I guess…," she said in a small voice, "I guess I still had the hope that one day we could actually be, you know, family. Maybe one day I could replace all the bad memories with good ones. And when I saw them lying dead there, I guess what really affected me was that the only thing they'd be leaving me with was fifteen years' worth of abuse. My only living family, and the only thing I can say is 'hey, remember when they had me sleeping inside a cupboard for my entire childhood?'"

Harriet slept with her fingers closed around the locket, sighing contentedly at the warm feeling spreading through her body. In the dark, two big, watery eyes gaze at her with open resentment. He has soot on his nose; Sirius has been in a dark mood and has taken to destroying each and every single thing Regulus once owned in front of the house elf.

Kreacher waits, and converses with the ghost of his mistress that he always carries in his head, and she tells him 'go to the blood'.

It takes some time for her to get used to the idea of family, of having adults take care of her. When Remus sees her washing their clothes on her own, silently, he offers to help. When her stomach grumbles, Sirius offers to make her one of his dubious concoctions (even in spite of their unappealing exterior, Harriet soon finds they taste amazing). When they both cast their gazes down in the night, and try to find solace in the spirit of a drink, Harriet comes over and makes them play charades with her. She relaxes her muscles when Sirius hugs her and soon learns to accept them gracefully and naturally.

She clears her mind like Snape told her when the Dursleys' dead stares come back to haunt her. She hears the hushed whispers of the Order members who come to visit, and she stores them on some distant part of her mind. It feels like she's stepped into a different universe where she can be a normal girl for a moment, and she's not inclined to give that up for another day as the Girl-Who-Lived.

(She can't remember her dreams, but if she'd been able to, she'd wake up in cold sweat.)

It all started with Harriet's suggestion that they should buy new household items for when the Weasleys came over. Most of the cutlery was enchanted in some ways, cursed in others, and the pans seemed like they would give birth to the apocalypse at any moment. Remus suggested a cheap shop he knew in Diagon Alley, which made Sirius immediately perk up.

"Yeah! We could go this weekend," he said, excitedly. Remus' eyes flashed a pained look before he grew stern.

"You know you can't go, Padfoot. It's too risky."

Harriet saw, almost step by step, as her godfather's smile turned into a frown. "Remus, you can't possibly expect me to stay holed up in here for the rest of my life. I spent two years on the run, without getting caught. You're seriously going to tell me that I cannot walk around Diagon Alley undetected?"

"Don't start now," the man said in a harsher tone. "You know as well as I do that with Voldemort's recent activity the whole alley is up in arms. Everyone on the streets is considered a dark wizard."

"Everyone was thought to be Sirius Black then! So what?"

"So what? So what if they capture you, Sirius?" exclaimed Remus. "What if they kill you on sight, or worse, have a Dementor give you the kiss? Would it be worth it, leaving your goddaughter alone for a bit of reckless fun?"

"You're blowing things out of proportion! Why don't you try and tell me that breathing is dangerous too?!" Sirius stood up, his face contorted in a snarl. "Or maybe it's because, like everyone else, you still think that I'm a bloody traitor that can't be trusted to go outside!"

Harriet widened her eyes, looking back at Remus, who seemed to be in shock. Sirius turned his back on them and stormed out, his footsteps clearly heard as he stomped up the stairs. The noise awakened the portrait of her mother, who started shouting obscenities at him.

"I'm sorry that you had to see that," Remus said, after a while.

"It's okay," Harried said, cleaning the dishes. "It happens in the best of families, too."

That night she stood with her eyes open wide, her back to the headboard of Regulus' bed. She couldn't sleep. The locket didn't comfort her as much as it usually did; on the other hand, it made her feel restless, jittery. She had left her door open, hoping for a breeze to cool her thoughts down on that hot summer night.

She heard a murmur of voices below. It was Sirius, taking out his anger on Kreacher. Harriet sighed. She didn't like the elf that much, but she thought that her godfather's behavior was a bit excessive. She heard the words "get out of my sight" spoken angrily, and the hollow echo of a pop as the elf disappeared.

Harriet blew out her the candles on her birthday cake as her friends and her godfather cheered on. She'd have thought, years before, that the vision in front of her eyes was the reflection of her wishes on the surface of the Mirror of Erised.

Grimmauld Place became a lively place as the new inhabitants spread mischief and silliness around the dark corners of the gloomy house. Harriet received Ron and Hermione, and they made pillow forts in Regulus' old room to hold their own war councils while the Order had their meeting downstairs. The twins became obsessed with their experiments, dreaming of a life beyond the war. It felt like something was building up, but Harriet couldn't quite put her finger on its nature. Was it good, was it bad? Would it come back to haunt them like Barty Crouch Jr.'s disfigured face came back to haunt her in her weakest nights?

(No one noticed Kreacher had been missing for weeks).

When Harriet saw Kreacher again, his eyes didn't hold the resentment she'd expected to see. He had a nervous look to him, and his fingers twitched, as if he had trouble moving. Whatever it was that he set out to do; he clearly didn't want to do it – to the point that it pained him. His behavior made her curious, and her curiosity made her approach him. "Kreacher, what's wrong?" she asked.

Her worried tone made him flinch. Before she could react, he grabbed her hand and disapparated them both. It was strange magic, and a strange sensation that elicited from her. The Fidelio charm that hid the house and the countless wards carefully woven over it had barely anything going against the magic of the house elf; he could come and go as he pleased, and he could take her with him if he so desired. Which he clearly didn't, but Harriet had the feeling that he was under some sort of command.

There were two women waiting for her in the room she was taken to. One of them, with wild dark hair that fell in waves over her half-lidded eyes, almost squealed in excitement at the sight of her.

"Well done, Kreacher," she said, with a cackle. "You brought itty bitty Potter to us."

"He has, indeed," the other said, and Harriet felt a chill go down her spine when she recognized to whom the voice belonged to. "I must say, Dumbledore is going rather senile in his old age. What a blatant disregard for the nature of elfin magic."

"Kreacher, what have you done?" Harriet whispered, and the little creature next to her let out a pitiful wail before disappearing.

"He's done exactly as his rightful mistress demanded," the wild-haired woman said. "Poor little cousin Sirius didn't exactly count on him to go back to the rest of the family when he told Kreacher to 'get lost'."

"You're Sirius' family?" asked Harriet, bewildered.

"That blood-traitor is no family of mine," the woman spat. "I am the last remaining Black."

"Bellatrix," Harriet said in realization, remembering Sirius' passing mention of her when he showed her his family tree. The woman's eyes glinted when the girl said her name.

"Will you tell him something for me, Potter?" Bellatrix asked. "Will you tell him that I said, 'I'll get you'?"

Harriet stared at her in shock, before tightening her hold on her wand. She thought many things she could reply, but she didn't think it'd be wise to speak, considering her present company.

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to come back later, Bella, if you wish to continue threatening Sirius Black. Potter and I have some things we need to discuss."

The Girl-Who-Lived stared at Riddle – now, Voldemort, as she leveled an amused glance at her lieutenant. The woman, who upon setting her gaze on her master had taken an expression of utter devotion on her face, nodded eagerly before sending Harriet one last deranged look and making her way out of the room.

With the two of them alone in the room, Harriet felt an unexpected surge of panic. Riddle looked at her from her place beside the fire, her wavy black hair neatly tucked back. She looked older from the last time she'd seen her, more like a woman in her early twenties rather than a precocious teenager. There was, however, a certain ageless air to her; like she was eternal, the before and after, and things like adulthood and adolescence were beneath her.

The girl noticed that her eyes were now ruby red.

"Did you like my present?" she asked.

"No. Why did you do it?" Harriet asked, taking a step forward.

"Why bother massacring your family? Why give them painless, merciful deaths?"

"What did I tell you in the Chamber, Harriet? You are useful, little girl. If I were to break your body now, twist it in a thousand directions, and later present it for all the world to see, I'd break them too, little girl. I wanted to remind the world who they were facing, and I needed you to procure a little thing for me."

Harriet reached for the locket, almost instinctively. "What?"

Voldemort noticed her reaction and chuckled darkly. "That which you hold so dear to your heart. It is mine and it was stolen from me by one Regulus Black."

Harry dropped her hand almost as if the locket had burnt her. "What did that have to do with the Dursleys?"

Voldemort's red eyes flashed as she stalked forward, stopping in front of her. Harriet was paralyzed. "I had a curious thing happen to me on the summer," she said, "I dreamt I was in a little girl's body, in a muggle house. The little girl watched her family eat from outside a window, her stomach rumbling because they hadn't made dinner for her. She wished she could stay with her godfather instead, not with those awful muggles."

Harriet's eyes widened. She hadn't considered the possibility that Voldemort had also been experiencing visions just like she had.

"I thought I could make the girl a favor, and make her dream come true."

"To send me to live with Sirius, so you could get me to his house for the locket."

Voldemort chuckled. "That was the general idea, yes." Her cold red eyes fixed on hers. "Now, turn around."

Harriet looked at her with confusion.

"You will not be able to take the locket off on your own; its magic compels you not to." The girl swallowed, and slowly turned her back on her enemy. Every nerve in her body was on alert, and she was aware of just how defenseless she was against Voldemort. She didn't know if she'd leave the place alive, she didn't know what the woman would have her do. But she figured that she could play along before finding a way to escape.

She felt hands on the nape of her neck and she almost jumped out of her skin. "I saw you kill Barty," the woman whispered. "What a beautiful sight, dear."

The weight of the locket disappeared, and she turned back to face Voldemort, who was regarding her with a strange expression in her face. "Why is that locket so important to you?" Harriet asked.

"You do not know of its origin," Voldemort stated. "It's Slytherin's locket. It belongs to my family."

The Girl-Who-Lived felt a bit weird hearing her nemesis throw around the word 'family' like that. It was strange to think that the woman had parents and kin, like she was so alien to mundane details like that. She wondered who her family was. She realized she barely knew anything about her.

"Did you know your family?" she asked, before she could stop herself. The woman lifted an eyebrow.

"Would my answer change anything? If I told you I was a poor orphan like you, neglected and abused by my caretakers, would it make some kind of compelling argument for you to discuss with your friends about nurture over nature?"

"Nothing can change the fact that you killed my parents, tried to kill me and," Harriet swallowed, "probably will try to kill me again in the near future. But it makes me curious, why you do the things you do."

That earned her a chuckle. Not the dark, malicious sound that threatened pain and sorrow, but an honest, surprised one.

"Why, you ask," Voldemort said, getting closer to the Girl-Who-Lived. "Do you remember what I told you in your first year?"

"There's only power, and those too weak to seek it," Harriet replied. The menacing glint in the older woman's eyes gave her little comfort, and she took a step back. Voldemort whipped out her wand and threw a spell at her, faster than lighting. Harriet began to choke.

"Don't you wish you could throw it off?" the woman said as the girl dropped to her knees, her hands at her throat. "Don't you wish you had been able to see it coming?" Harriet's face was red.

Voldemort waved her wand and the girl felt her throat expand, and she took a big gulp of air. "Don't you wish you could take revenge?"

Harriet, hands on the ground as she coughed. She realized she was shaking, and she was surprised to find that it wasn't because of the spell. She was shaking in fear. She had thought she'd die.

"I chose to be the one holding the wand instead of the one being attacked," Voldemort continued. "When Barty attacked you, it was very much clear whose side you preferred as well."

Harriet cleared her throat, and shakily stood up. "T-there's a difference between wanting to survive and what you do," she said. "You want to kill all muggles."

"Is it, Harriet?" Voldemort said silkily. "Do you honestly believe that muggles pose no threat to us?"

Harriet leveled the woman with an incredulous stare. "Do you?" She asked, her voice coming off rough and raspy. She cleared her throat before adding, "because for someone who dislikes them that much, you sure spend most of your time trying to kill defenseless witch babies."

"I have little pity for either muggles or people who stand in my path," Voldemort said. "In my eyes, they are both the same kind of nuisance. The magical race has been stripped of its rightful place, and I've made it my duty to rectify that. Whoever threatens that must die."

Harriet frowned. She was about to answer the dark witch when a little pop was heard and Kreacher once again appeared in the room.

"Ah, it is time then," Voldemort said. "I'm afraid we must cut this conversation short, Harriet. Your dear godfather has threatened Kreacher with a horrible fate lest he confesses your whereabouts."

"You're going to let me go?" Harriet was dumbstruck.

"Careful, Girl-Who-Lived," the woman replied with no small amount of amusement. "People might say you're fond of your nemesis."

The last thing Harriet saw before feeling Kreacher's small, cold hand taking theirs were her red eyes.

"You just… talked?" Remus asked her. She nodded. She felt astonished, just like the rest of them, but not quite for the same reason. Voldemort not attacking her on sight was certainly a welcome surprise, just one that she wouldn't dream of getting used to. However the cause of her shocked daze was more along the lines of how… not surprising it actually was. If someone had told her beforehand what was to occur between them that evening, Harriet would be hard pressed to say that it was entirely out of character for the older woman.

And this is why she shrugged, finding a strange logic behind it all. "She wanted something else this time."

"And pray say, what did she want, miss Potter?" Severus Snape's voice came from the back of the room. Harriet gazed into the darkened corner, searching for the elusive figure of her Potions professor. "She wanted Regulus' locket."

Sirius frowned. "Regulus' locket? What?"

"Uh," Harriet turned back to face her godfather, shame coloring her cheeks in red. "I found it the first night I stayed in your brother's room. A small locket, with an 'S' engraved in emerald and gold. Remember that fight you had with Kreacher the other day?" Sirius nodded. "It was about that locket, I think. He wanted me to give it back to him but…"

Harriet dropped her eyes to her lap.

"It felt really soothing… I-I had just come from Privet Drive, and it just made me feel detached, when I held it I felt like I was looking at things as if they were a memory and not the present. She told me Kreacher had gone to Bellatrix saying that I had the locket, so she sent him to find me."

"This is incredibly problematic," an aged voice spoke from the door. Harriet looked up to see her headmaster make his entrance. She thought that his robes added a really discordant note among the dim, somber colors of the rest of the Order, even if his face was filled with the same shadows that seemed to haunt the rest. "I have to confess that while I did consider that Kreacher would be a potential security risk, I had wagered that any bad blood between Sirius and him would be assuaged by several factors."

"We should just kill him and be done with it," Sirius growled. Harriet looked at her godfather with worry; his black eyes glinted with the same madness she'd found in Bellatrix's, and she was painfully reminded again of the consequences of his extended stay in Azkaban.

"One should be surprised to find a servant which hasn't adopted his master's vices," Dumbledore said sternly. "There are ways to prevent Kreacher from exposing any of the inhabitants in this house again, most of which if not all, fail to include his demise. Why, I'd even dare to propose that he start working in Hogwarts' kitchens for the next year. "

"No," Sirius said, straightening his back. His eyes suddenly lost all its dark fervor, and assumed instead a chilling sharpness that brought him closer to the portraits of his Black ancestors than the smiling image that Harriet had seen in some of her parents' portraits. "This doesn't concern you anymore, Albus. He is my servant."

Something akin to anger briefly sparked within Dumbledore's gaze, but it was quickly hidden.

"I'm sure we can discuss this later," Remus interjected before Sirius said anything else. "We haven't talked about the locket, yet. We don't know why Voldemort wanted it, or why was something so precious to her within Regulus' possessions."

"If it was Regulus' then I have to say that I'm surprised you are alive and healthy, Harriet," Sirius said. "He was as fond of the dark arts as the greasy git over there."

"By your brief description of its effects, Harriet," Dumbledore said sending a warning look to her godfather, "I must say that it falls within a very broad range of artifacts that I know of. Some dark, some light, none of them good at all."

"I don't know, it was really weird," Harriet tried to explain. "It wasn't that I felt anything out of the ordinary. It just gave me like a… like a push towards another direction. I did feel really overprotective over it, which is why I never mentioned it to you in the first place, Sirius. Sorry about that."

"It's okay. Did Voldemort say anything about it?"

"Just that it was precious to her, and that it was stolen by Regulus."

Understanding dawned on her godfather's face. Next to her, Dumbledore gave a small frown.

"That's why he was killed," Remus said.

Harriet nodded. She'd come to the same conclusion. "She also said it belonged to her family. That it was Slytherin's locket."

She heard Sirius' sharp intake of breath. All three of them were shocked, except for Dumbledore, who looked pale, his expression dark and stern. "What else did you talk about, Harriet?" he asked, fixing his unnerving blue eyes on hers.

"She…," Harriet swept her gaze to the side, "she told me she had visions of me during the summer, just like I had with her. She saw me when Barty attacked me, and during my time with the Dursleys. She said she'd killed them because I spent the summer wishing I could get away from them."

"That's… incredibly disturbing," Remus said.

"I don't know how, but she knew about this place. And she wanted me to come here, so I could find the locket for her…" Harriet closed her hands in small fists.

"She knew because it was agreed that Severus would tell her," Dumbledore explained. "However, if we'd had any inkling of what that would cause, Harriet I assure you that our actions would have been different."

The Girl-Who-Lived looked at the man, opened her mouth to speak and said nothing. She took her head in her hands.

"I think it'd be best if we finish this another time," Remus said.

"I don't think they get it," Harriet said, hear hands on the pristine white sheets she'd washed earlier that day. She looked at them like she didn't recognize them, as if she was reliving an old memory, details like those slowly obscured by time.

Sirius looked at her questioningly. She said in a smaller voice, "this has never been about me. Not since she took charge. She's just using me to get to Dumbledore. She's just using me because I tend to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"That's the only thing she knows how to do, Harriet," her godfather said softly.

"I guess…" she sighed. "What really bothers me is that she makes me feel like I'm just a doll. It's really hard to explain, and it's going to sound insane, but thinking about the locket and what she said to me… I get the feeling that she's moving me, like a… like a chess piece. I don't like that, it makes my skin crawl."

She raised her head. "But I can't do anything about it. When she asked me for the locket I didn't even hesitate. It wasn't like I screamed 'over my dead body!' and did some heroic stupid shite like everybody thinks I do. I just gave it to her. I thought, 'maybe she won't make it painful', and gave her the damn thing like it was candy. I'm a bloody coward."

"Do you understand it, Sirius?" Harriet said, feeling her eyes water. "She makes me feel so powerless."

The man watched her for a moment, and then nodded to himself. He closed the door he was resting against, and approached his goddaughter. He kneeled next to her and took her hands in his. "I completely understand it, Harry. And I promise you that I'll find a way for you not to ever feel like that anymore."

She found herself one day in the library, late into the night, when her godfather came into the room with strange shadows in his eyes. The killing curse cast on Kreacher, he admitted, was the first dark arts he'd done ever since he was a teenager.

"I heard from my dad that the Ministry's going to be sending someone to Hogwarts this year," Ron told them while they snacked on chocolate frogs. Harriet had stopped the trolley woman earlier and had bought enough candy to feed two or three compartments – ("King Cross was already pretty gloomy, let's not start the year like that. Let's throw a small picnic here!"). Cho had come earlier, and Ron had gone to find Neville and his friend Luna Lovegood, which now occupied the little space left in the cramped compartment (with Harriet sitting on Cho's lap, there was enough place for all of them).

"Why?"

"It's an intervention of sorts," Ron explained, "at least that's what my dad understood. He overheard it at the office. He told me that they were afraid there were spies within the school, and wanted to send some aurors to keep the students safe."

"But Dumbledore's there," Cho said with a frown.

"I get the feeling that this isn't about our safety at all," Hermione reasoned. "The minister has been acting very strangely these past few weeks… I mean," she turned to look at Ron, "he sent your father on a 'diplomatic' mission, he had Kingsley appointed as his personal bodyguard, but keeps him stationed at his manor, Tonks has complained that she isn't getting anything but paperwork since June…"

"So you're saying that Fudge is trying to keep everyone connected to Dumbledore apart?" Ron asked, "Why would he do that?"

"Politics, Ron," Harriet said. "Fudge doesn't care about the war at all. He thinks Dumbledore will use this as an excuse to sack him."

"That's insane," Neville said. "Everybody knows Dumbledore's been offered Fudge's place many times."

"Of course," Harriet reasoned. "And everybody knows that a Headmaster is far more powerful than a Minister. Fudge isn't concerned with losing his position as a minister but rather with Dumbledore losing his position as headmaster."

Everyone looked at her with confusion. "Being a headmaster, you get to influence the opinions of the wizards and witches that will one day rule Wizarding society and you can do it when they're at their most vulnerable. Fudge seems to have realized this very recently though. He knows that a man like him can use this war to cement his influence."

"That's outright machiavellian," Hermione whispered, to the confusion of mostly everyone in the compartment. "I don't think Dumbledore looks at it that way."

"You're going all Slytherin on us, mate" Ron said with a laugh. "Coming up with those conspiracy theories…"

"Yeah," Neville said. "Dumbledore doesn't seem like he's capable of that… I think he genuinely likes teaching."

Harriet felt a bit miffed.

"You think so? What do you know about Dumbledore? I mean, other than what it says on the chocolate frog card?"

Cho shook his head. "He's a good man."

"He's many things," Harriet said. "But a good man… I don't know if I can call him that."

"He vanquished Grindelwald," Cho pointed out.

"He was friends with Grindelwald in his youth. He even agreed to help him with his global domination plan."

Everyone in the compartment held their breath, except for Luna. The blonde Ravenclaw smiled softly. "Yes," she said, speaking for the first time, "Dumbledore was a really troubled kid."

Harriet nodded at the girl. "Dumbledore's sister died during an argument Grindelwald and him had with Aberforth, his brother. Then Grindelwald split and went to the continent to become a Dark Lord."

"But he still fought against him, right?" Ron exclaimed, agitated. "And when You-Know-Who appeared, he also fought against her."

"Fighting for the right cause doesn't make you a good person," Luna said. "Nibellious Nalkyen spent all his life trying to rid the world from Naphtas, but he wanted to do it so he could have all the bobelium stones for himself."

Harriet stared at the girl, confused, and then checked Hermione's expression to see if she'd understood the reference. As the expression on her friend's face was a mirror of her own, she concluded it was just Luna being odd as usual. "Uh, yeah. That's my point. He can fight the good fight, that doesn't mean he can be trusted."

"I think you're being paranoid," Cho said.

Harriet shrugged with no small amount of annoyance. "We'll see."

Harriet didn't bring up the topic of Dumbledore's suspicious motivations anymore amongst her friends. It was something she'd thought about for a long time, and she wasn't about to be convinced by arguments made on the spot. She'd talked about it at length with Sirius, particularly after her kidnapping.

"Is something wrong between Dumbledore and you, Siri?" Harriet asked her godfather during breakfast. In his hands there was a crumpled letter, and vaguely she could see her headmaster's spidery lettering covering part of the page.

"We don't see eye to eye on many things as of lately," he said.

"This has to do with Kreacher, right?"

"This has to do with him placing you under the Dursley's care for so long," his voice was filled with anger, but it clearly wasn't directed at her. "Then this half imprisonment in which he has me. He's using Remus to keep me in check. Then Kreacher. Then this," he threw the letter to the trash can. "He found out about the lessons I've been giving you. He doesn't want me to continue."

"What?" Harriet asked, bewildered. "Why?"

"He thinks it'll involve you in the war."

Harriet blinked her eyes, nonplussed for a moment. "I have a feeling," Harriet said, "that Dumbledore's crafting this very, very particular path for me to walk. And if I take one step outside, if I do something he doesn't expect, it'll be ruined."

"He's always believed in the idea of the ´greater good´," Sirius said darkly. "To the point that he believes he can choose for other people."

Harriet sighed, "It's so confusing. I know he means well but…"

"Harry, good intentions have never justified anything."

"I know."

Sirius sighed and took a seat in front of her, hand entangling in his wild morning hair. "To me, this is all temporary. I'll aid the Order in any way I can, I'll try to get my freedom back, but my number one priority is you. Dumbledore thinks that he can use that to manipulate me, but I can see what he's doing as clear as the day. And I'll be damned before I let him put you in danger."

Professor Umbridge turned out to be as annoying as her introduction during the Welcoming Feast had promised. Excruciatingly boring and misinformed classes were the torture of every Wednesday and Thursday for her, and she began to wonder if this wasn't part of some twisted plan of Voldemort to slowly drive her insane. She also made the mistake of making an enemy out of her the moment she let her cheek get the best of her when the woman insisted that Voldemort was not in the country and that Dumbledore had been fear mongering. This earned her a very long detention.

Harriet stared dumbfounded at the quill, then at the toad-like woman who was regarding her with a sickening sweet smile. Her anger started to simmer, venom dripping into her veins as a little drop of her blood gathered at the end of the quill she held in her left hand. In her hand, a wet pink and very painful I MUST NOT TELL LIES reflected the words written on the parchment. She could hear Voldemort's words, as her detention dragged on, repeated like a mantra: don't you wish you could take revenge?

The curse felt tempting on her lips. She felt the syllables gently pushing against the roof of her mouth, screaming to be let out. Her hands itched to reach her wand, show the disgusting woman what a true liar deserved. But something within her endured, and she finished her detention in silence, marked hand hanging uselessly at her side.

The moment she stepped out, she ran. She let her feet take her, stair after stair, the dark turning the hallways of the castle into a blur. She eventually ended up in the seventh floor, in front of a weird tapestry with a wizard and some dancing trolls. She stared at it, not quite processing what she saw. She felt angry and her head was a chaotic mess of thoughts – and she wished for one thing: to let it all out. She paced for a bit, trying to calm herself, to no avail. It just took one look at her hand to make her lose control once again.

But something stopped her before she took it out on the stupid picture of the dancing trolls – a door, in front of her, that hadn't been there before. She looked at the tapestry, then again at the mysterious entrance. She hesitated for a moment before her curiosity got the best of her and she opened it.

Inside, there was a spacious, cavernous room. There were all sorts of items scattered around, most of them looking like dueling props. In the middle there were four dummies with big red circles painted on their chest, facing her. Harriet had the crazy idea that the room had provided her with just what she needed, and she slowly closed the door behind her, taking her wand.

It was time to put to good use what Sirius had been teaching her that summer.

She'd named the mysterious place the Room of Necessities, but after telling her friends about it they'd decided that "Room of Requirements" fit best. They'd made numerous trips to the place, trying to figure out the mechanics behind its appearance, and had discovered that it took someone pacing, wishing for a specific something, for the door to appear. Harriet decided that she would use the place to practice her defensive and offensive spellwork.

"I haven't seen you at all this week," complained Cho with a pout.

"I know; I'm sorry. I had some essays due and I've been spending some time training in the Room of Requirements," Harriet explained, her mind wandering back to the spells she'd been trying out the day before.

"Harry…" Cho eyed her warily for a moment, then sighed. "I think that maybe you're obsessing over this."

"What do you mean?" Harriet snapped.

"This! All you can talk about these days is about You-Know-Who or Dumbledore, or the war. You're angry all the time. You should relax."

"Relax?" the Girl-Who-Lived let out a bitter laugh. "Relax, Cho? Do you know who you're talking to? I have my days counted. I have a blood thirsty woman wanting to kill me. There's nothing relaxing about that."

She snorted, and got up. "Dating the Girl-Who-Lived is not all sunshine and candy, Cho."

"Things have gotten ugly around here," Harriet said to the mirror in her hand. In it, she could see Sirius's worried face as clear as the day. Around her, the silent forest moved with the breeze of the early evening. "Umbridge has gone crazy. She's claiming there're spies amongst the students and that Dumbledore is aiding them. She set up an inquisitorial squad. She's started making ridiculous edicts one after the other."

"She'll soon get sacked."

"I wish. How's Dumbledore?"

Sirius shrugged. "He sent Fawkes to tell us he's okay, but he won't say anything else."

Harriet stared at the dummy in front of her. Its body and face were a mass of splinters and burnt wood. The hard lines of the disfigured face reminded her of Barty's mangled features the day of the World Cup final.

She had a wand in her hand and a crumpled piece of parchment in the other. Someone had sent her a note earlier; in a scratchy, nervous handwriting they had simply written go to the room next to the statue of Wilfred the Wistful in the second floor at 2 pm today. They've been doing this for weeks. Thought you ought to know.

And she'd gone. She thought she had an idea of what she would find there, but even if it'd been explicitly told in excruciating detail, nothing would've prepared her to see Cho's luscious black hair messed up by the wandering hands of Draco Malfoy. She didn't know what made her heart tremble and break when she looked at them; was it that Cho had been lying to her? Or that she'd been locking lips with Harriet's star bully?

She remembered her beautiful slanted eyes growing wide when she realized she'd been caught. She remembered Malfoy's smug stare. Harriet had stopped for a second, taken a look at the note again, and released a shaky breath.

"This was a new low for you, Malfoy," she'd said, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Setting up all this to get back at me?"

He'd never answered her. Cho then turned into a mess of apologies and tear, and Harriet felt disgusted that she'd ever let the girl so close. It wasn't the unfaithfulness that she felt angered by, it was the fact that she'd let herself be played by Malfoy, of all people. That the girl, who clearly was annoyed with Harriet's antics in those months, would go as far as seeking out her rival to get revenge on her attitude.

Harriet felt she had no time for Cho's pettiness. And so she had let the girl talk, shed one angry tear for her and had simply told her "we're done".

"Guess she wasn't that much of a dyke, right Potter?" Malfoy said one afternoon. Harriet stopped, slowly turning back to face the blond. "I mean you would think she swung the other way with the way she was sucking my…"

"Everte statum!"

Harriet didn't wait for Malfoy's cronies to catch up with her, and blasted them into a wall. She furiously stalked forward, and grabbed the boy by his throat. "I've had it with your shit, Malfoy," she whispered. "Don't talk to me. Don't even look at me. Because if you keep up with this bullshit, I'll make sure you regret this for the rest of your life. Do you understand?"

She didn't wait for the blond to respond and dropped him on the floor before walking back to her common room.

"She's laying low," Ron said as they read the front page news in The Prophet. Anti-Dumbledore propaganda financed by the ministry occupied half the page, the other half being news of Voldemort's activity within the country.

"She's probably just gathering followers," Hermione commented, going back to her seat with a frustrated sigh. "I mean, remember what Hagrid said before he left? She's sent people to the Giants. She's probably doing the same with other groups."

"She's being really cautious this time, according to Sirius," Harriet said. "Old Voldemort would've been out in the open murdering people left and right by now."

Hermione bit her lip. "Maybe she'll try to pressure the Ministry rather than going into a full-scale war."

The other girl snorted. "She doesn't need to. This Dumbledore smear campaign? That has her name written all over. She has infiltrated the Ministry. I mean, look at how chummy Lucius Malfoy was with the Minister the last time we saw them."

Ron whistled. "Mate, when did you get so bloody clever?"

Harriet blinked at him, nonplussed. "That's what I'd do, that's all."

"This seems like something you'd say," Luna said one morning while they were sharing some sandwiches outside the castle. In her hands there was a copy of the early edition of the Prophet.

Harriet chuckled. "I know I've said some things about him, but I don't understand why everybody seems to think I hate him. I'm just wary of him."

"That's good," Luna replied with a soft smile. "You never know when they're being controlled by Fnords."

The other girl laughed. "Yeah. There's something to be said about all this, though. I mean, there are people who really believe that Dumbledore was using Hogwarts to recruit members for his extremist organization."

"People will believe what they want to believe. They can be easily convinced of anything they will know will make them feel better."

"Luna, you're a fountain of wisdom."

Harriet finished the rest of her sandwich and got up. "I should head to the library; I need to finish an essay for Transfiguration. McGonagall's going to kill me if I hand another one past the due date. See you Luna."

The blonde girl waved at her. The sun felt delicious on her skin as she slowly made her way to the castle's entrance. Some people stared at her as she passed by; since Dumbledore's flight from the school her association with him had also been put in the spotlight. Wryly, she thought that for the first time a student rumor would be completely true: Dumbledore was training her to be a weapon. Not that he'd admit to it.

She decided to take a shorter route, using a somewhat unknown passage in the first floor. She was surprised, however, when she saw none other than Draco Malfoy coming towards her.

He had a menacing glint in his eyes, but she wouldn't let herself be intimidated by the blond. "Fancy seeing you here, Malfoy," she said with a sneer. It was obvious the other student had sought her out; there was no other explanation for the two of them finding each other in the middle of a secret passage.

"You certainly move to bigger prospects, Potter. First Chang, now Loony Lovegood?"

Harriet snorted. "Are we really going to discuss my love life in the middle of this passage?"

"What, feeling scared when the mudblood and Weasel aren't around?" Draco sneered, taking a step towards her.

"You seem to forget that last time I was on my own and managed to kick not only your sorry ass, but also your cronies'. Sod off, Malfoy."

She didn't see it coming – she felt the sting before she realized what had happened. Malfoy had slapped her. She stared at him dumbfounded, more confused by his use of force (something he considered beneath him) rather than angry for the fact he'd hit her. "What the…?"

She tried to reach for her wand, but he stopped her by grabbing her hands and roughly pulling them behind her back. He shoved her against the wall, his body leaning against her back to keep her in place.

"You think you're so great, Potter," the blond snarled next to her ear. "You think you're oh-so-better than everyone else, but you're just a disgusting mudblood dyke."

"Malfoy get off me or I'll kill you," Harriet shouted, trashing against the boy.

"I'll show you what's good, you fucking slut," he said, and the Girl-Who-Lived felt her blood run cold when she heard him unzip his pants.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Malfoy?!"

"Let's see how much of a dyke you really are."

Harriet's struggle became more and more desperate; she managed to land a kick near the boy's groin, which earned her a pained gasp from him. He wouldn't relent, and moved so he was holding her wrists with one hand, the other preparing to strike. His angered face came into view, and for a split second she thought of Ariana Dumbledore and her uncontrollable magic, and suddenly understood what had happened to her.

Harriet let out a scream, and her world plunged into darkness.

She felt a hand closed around hers. It was smooth and small, and she smiled at her tenderness. "H-hermione?" she croaked.

"Harriet, oh god, finally!" her friend screamed in happiness, hugging her. Harriet opened her eyes to see Hermione's frizzy hair blocking the rest of her view. Once she moved back to her seat, Harriet could see that next to her were Ron, Luna and Neville.

"What happened?"

Ron and Hermione exchanged glances for a moment. "We… we don't know, Harry. Luna found you and Malfoy unconscious in the middle of the passage in the first floor, he was beaten up pretty bad and you…"

"What?" Harriet asked.

"Madam Pomfrey diagnosed you with mild magical exhaustion. You were knocked out for three days," Neville answered.

Harriet felt strange. "How did you find me, Luna?"

"I was in the Astronomy tower reading when the Grey Lady came up to me. She told me where to find you."

"Oh," Harriet had never spoken with the Ravenclaw ghost, and given her secretive nature she'd have hardly guessed she was the sort to roam the first floors. "I should thank her some time."

"You should. She's lovely, once you get to know her."

Hermione squeezed her hand. "Harry, you should know that… well, Malfoy woke up two days ago, and since then he's been telling the whole school you tried to murder him. Umbridge was waiting for you to wake up to interrogate you."

Harriet's already ashy complexion went ghostly white. Her emerald eyes flashed in anger. "That disgusting piece of…"

She felt weak all of sudden, and her anger vanished. She realized she'd been letting her magic react to her emotions, which wasn't a wise thing to do in her weakened state. She took a deep breath before speaking, "he saw me talking to Luna, and cornered me in that passage. He insulted me as always and then he… he slapped me, and when I tried to take out my wand he shoved me against the wall. He was going to…"

Harriet felt she couldn't say it. Hermione pressed on, "What was he going to do? Harry?"

"He was going to rape me."

Hermione's eyes went as wide as saucers. Ron cussed, and clenched his hands into fists. "I'll fucking kill him," he said. "The git is going to pay for this, mate. I'll make sure of that."

"Ron," Hermione shot him a warning look. "We need to tell the authorities about this."

"So they can give him a slap on the wrist and say 'boys will be boys'?" Ron exclaimed. "His daddy is not going to let them do anything about it. He has the entire ministry wrapped around his little finger."

Harriet sighed. "Guys, please. I don't like this anymore than you do, but he was just being an arse as always. There's no need to blow these things out of proportion."

Now Hermione's stern look was pointed towards Harriet. "No need? Harriet, he wanted to rape you! It doesn't matter that you knocked him out before he could! What if he keeps trying? What if he does it to another girl?"

Harriet didn't say anything for a while. "I wasn't saying that we do nothing; I mean, right now I feel like beating him into a bloody pulp. But this is standard Malfoy, okay?"

"No, it isn't," Neville spoke up. "Bullying is one thing. But this… this isn't normal, Harry. We should really tell an auror about this. Maybe they won't throw him into Azkaban, but at least someone will know. They can scare him. Maybe keep an eye on him."

"You should be resting," a voice said above her. Harriet looked up to see the floating figure of the Grey Lady. Her haunted, colorless eyes were bright in the dim light of the infirmary, her voice carrying a certain touch of sadness that seemed to permeate the entire room. Harriet felt herself shudder.

"I can't. Too many things inside my head," Harriet said with a small smile. "I wanted to thank you, by the way. For telling Luna where I was."

"There was nothing else I could do," the ghost replied, floating closer to her bed. "That's the way of the world for us. We're powerless on our own."

Harriet frowned. "What do you mean?"

"So many women I've seen… so many, dead and brutalized at the hands of their lovers, their fathers, their brothers. In this world it is a rare thing to see a woman who can stand up for herself."

Harriet nodded. "I was… thinking about that, actually. A friend came over earlier and told me that I shouldn't treat this like something normal but… I just can't, because in a way it's become normal for me to be in danger in some way. And I keep, I don't know, I keep treating things like they're no big deal."

The girl sighed. "It makes me wonder, because I've heard of things like these, and I've always felt like I'd just break down if it happened to me… but I've had my family murdered, I had a man attack me some time ago, and now this. And all I could feel was anger, incredible anger."

The Grey Lady smiled. "We've been told our entire lives that we should be nothing but victims, and the worst thing is that most actually believe it. But then comes along a woman angry enough, and it is my sincerest hope to see her inspiring the rest."

"I wish…" the ghost murmured. She paused for a second, piercing eyes locking onto Harriet's. "My mother, Rowena, she was a bit like you. And I envied her, I resented her. I felt like she was my competition."

"I made the grave mistake of stealing her Diadem, her one true treasure and one of the secrets behind her fame. She sent one of my pretenders to find me. And there…"

Harriet didn't say a word when the ghost stopped talking. She knew that their deaths were sensitive subjects, and she understood the gist of what had happened. "I'm sorry," she said.

The Grey Lady gave her a pained smile. "I hope that you may take my story for a warning. Rely on your own strength. Don't let them fool you into thinking you'll always be at the receiving end of the wand."

Harriet's eyes widened at the words. "That… Someone said those exact same words to me."

"I keep myself away from the student body, but sometimes I speak with those who are worthy. Maybe you met someone who's now spreading my message."

"Cecilia Riddle?"

The ghost's face went slack, as if something had been switched off. She then regarded the girl carefully. "Our current Dark Lady… yes. And I regret every single word I said to her."

"Why?" Harriet thought it was a bit weird, given the female-empowerment discussion they had just had.

"I told her the location of my mother's Diadem, and she took it back to Hogwarts… tainted."

Alarms began to go off in Harriet's mind. Slytherin's locket, Ravenclaw's diadem… did Voldemort collect founder items? Did she have any sort of personal claim to them? "Is it still here?"

"I saw her took it to the room that vanishes in the seventh floor. I do not know what happened to it after that."

The Girl-Who-Lived sighed. "Thank you."

Umbridge's patronizing stare during her little interrogation made her blood boil. Next to her, a smug Malfoy shot little smirks at her while the woman told her that she wouldn't believe her until she had proof. Harriet gritted her teeth, her hands clenching under the table.

"I have a little gift for you."

"I'm going to flail you alive the first chance I get," Harriet told the blond would-be rapist the moment they were out of Umbridge's office.

"Let's see if you get one," he said, chuckling as he handed her a small letter. "She sends her regards."

Harriet watched him walk away.

Dear Harriet,

I confess that I am incredibly surprised at what a good treasure finder you are. You once again maneuver yourself into a very convenient situation. Why, I might even say so far you've been the best follower I've ever had.

Let's make a trade, shall we? I have something of yours and you have something of mine. Bring the diadem to me and I'll bring a nice little dog to you. Midnight at his old playing ground.

LV

Harriet's panicked steps to the girls' room didn't go unnoticed. Hermione and Ron found her shouting at the little two-way mirror Sirius had given her, knuckles going white with the pressure of her fingers.

"Harry! What's wrong?" Hermione asked her, resting a hand on her friend's shoulder.

"This," she replied, and handed her the letter. Hermione's eyes went wide. Ron paled.

"Where did you get this?"

"Malfoy gave it to me after our little chat with Umbridge."

Ron's nostrils flared, and Harriet noted he had his fists clenched, but he didn't say a word on the matter. Instead, he asked, "are you sure it's her?"

"Positive. There's no way Malfoy would've known about the locket."

"What about this diadem? What is she talking about?" Ron asked.

"Yesterday night at the infirmary, the Grey Lady came to talk to me. She told me Riddle had brought Ravenclaw's diadem back to Hogwarts and hid it in the Room of Requirements," Harriet bit her lip. "I don't know how she could've found out."

"Maybe she was expecting it," Hermione said. She had her hand entangled in her frizzy wild locks, as she always did when she was thinking. "It seems a bit strange that she'd find out so quickly… unless she had someone following you all the time, which doesn't seem likely. But, if she knew what she was looking for, but… it's a bit of a stretch given that…"

"Mione, you're not making any sense," Ron said.

"Well," Hermione said with a certain doubt, "maybe she set up the whole thing. She could've told Malfoy to attack you…"

"So the Grey Lady would tell me where the Diadem was?" Harriet said, nodding. "She knew her, from her days at Hogwarts. Riddle talked her into revealing the location of the Diadem. And she had a very… strong stance on some matters, with her past and all. It's probable that she knew that something like this would make her come and see me."

"Mate, maybe there's something I'm missing in all of this…" Ron said, "but if she wanted you to find the Diadem, why didn't she just tell you where it was?"

"Maybe there's more to it than the Diadem," Hermione reasoned. "Maybe she's just playing with Harry."

"That one seems to be the reason," Harriet said bitterly.

"We should tell someone, though. This seems like a trap."

"Who? We don't know where Dumbledore is, Remus is gone on a mission, the aurors won't take me seriously…"

"We could tell Professor McGonagall," Hermione offered, "maybe she has some way to contact Dumbledore."

Harriet looked at her watch. "It's ten thirty. Getting to Hogsmeade using the passage will take me forty minutes at least. And I still have to find the diadem. You should find her now."

Ron frowned. "Take you forty minutes? Mate, we're going with you."

"Ron, this is very dangerous. I don't want…"

"No, Harry, don't start. We're not going to let you go alone."

Harriet opened her mouth to argue, but there was something unmovable in Ron's eyes. She knew she wouldn't convince him.

"Let's split. Mione, see if you can find McGonagall, take the cloak with you. Ron and I will go to the Room of Requirements to find the diadem."

They soared through the air, mounted on broomsticks. The chill of the night showed little clemency for them, but Harriet's mind didn't even feel the cold. She was thinking about Sirius.

There five of them – Neville and Luna had joined their entourage the moment they'd stepped out of the Gryffindor common room. Luna had gone with Ron and Harriet to the seventh floor, and her unusual thinking had made them discover the space that the Room of Requirement conjured for a student who wished to hide something. It took them just a couple of minutes to find the diadem, perched over a bust, near a broken vanishing cabinet.

"Do you think this is a good idea?" Ron asked again, unsure.

"Of course it isn't," Harriet replied. "But what else can we do? I can't gamble with Sirius' life."

"But first the locket, then this… tiara. Why does You-Know-Who want these things?"

"Maybe she wants to feel pretty," Luna replied softly, which earned her a laugh from her two companions.

Eventually they'd met with Hermione and Neville near the Quidditch field. The young witch was disheartened, as they hadn't been able to find McGonagall. According to Professor Sprout, who saw them knocking on the Gryffindor Head of House's office door, she'd gone to St. Mungo's to check on Emmeline Vance, an Order member who'd been recently attacked by Death Eaters.

"So there's no one from the Order here," Neville said. "We need to be really careful then."

"This smells more and more like a trap," Hermione bit her lip. "I don't like this."

"Me either," Harriet agreed.

They found themselves in the porch in front of the Shrieking Shack just a few minutes before midnight. The place was eerily silent, filling them with a chill that seemed out of place for a warm spring night. A soft breeze rustled the trees surrounding the grimy house, making the shadows in the distance dance with each other, forming strange shapes.

Harriet took a step forward, jaw clenched. In her hands, she held a small bag where the diadem was hidden. She hadn't wanted to repeat the experience with the locket, and had simply moved the stylish tiara with dragonhide gloves on, putting it into her bag. She looked ahead; the door to the Shrieking Shack was open. She gestured her friends to follow her and they started moving, leaving the broomsticks behind.

The house creaked at every step, the rotting wood serving as an unstable ground for their measured movements. They held their wands up, in front of them, ready to defend themselves… but there didn't seem to be anyone in the house.

"There's no one here," Ron eventually whispered, after they'd checked the second floor. "I thought Death Eaters would be more punctual."

"And you would be right, Weasley," a sneering voice said behind them. They turned around to see a group of seven Death Eaters covered head to toe in black robes, faces obscured by skull-like masks. Harriet didn't doubt for a second that the one who had spoken was none other than Lucius Malfoy, as his hood couldn't cover the little wisps of white-blond hair that framed his face.

"Hand over the diadem, Potter," the man commanded.

"Where's Sirius?" Harriet asked. Behind Lucius, a cackling laugh could be heard, and a small woman emerged from the shadows holding her wand up. The Girl-Who-Lived knew recognized her half-lidded eyes, her mad stare.

"Where's Sirius? Where's my godfather?" Bellatrix mocked the girl. "What did I tell you last time, Potter? I told you I'd get him!"

Harriet's expression darkened. "If you won't give me my godfather back, forget about the diadem."

"Potter, Potter, Potter… don't you see that we never had him?" Lucius told her with a mocking smile. "You are truly one dim-witted little chit."

The girl made a gesture to Hermione, who understood it at once. They had to flee. As she'd thought, the whole thing had been a trap. Sirius had never been in danger. Bellatrix noticed their intentions, and moved to stand in front of Lucius. "Now, little Potter, let's play nice. You have something that belongs to my Master. Now hand it over before I have all your friends hanged with their own intestines."

Behind her, she felt Ron move. "Confringo!" he shouted, and everything went to hell.

The seven dark wizards immediately jumped into action and started firing curses of their own. Hermione acted quickly, and blasted part of the stairs so the resulting rumble would cover for them. Neville and Luna started running to the door, with the other three on their tails – the house was groaning and shaking, and it seemed like it'd topple over at any moment.

Outside, the Death Eaters began chasing them. The black smoke of their apparitions covered their vision as they ran to the trees, seeking cover. Harriet tried distracting them by conjuring small smoke bombs, but it only worked to gain them a small amount of time. She heard a cry, and then a body drop to the ground near her.

"Did you honestly believe… were you actually naïve enough to think that children could fight against us?" said Lucius as he slowly walked to her, taking his wand from his cane. Harriet looked around, and saw that all her friends were being held hostage by Death Eaters. She noted that Neville had been stunned. Bellatrix walked over, mad grin aimed solely at her.

"Give us the diadem, Potter…" Lucius said. "Or watch your friends die."

Harriet bit her lip, taking a look around the courtyard. Her mind was running wild with possible situations, but there were none she could think of in which they got out of there alive. After all, the diadem was the only way they could actually ensure they would not be harmed. If she gave them what they were looking for, there would be no guaranties for them afterwards.

She gave him the bag with the diadem with no small amount of reluctance. He took it eagerly, brusquely, and then pointed his wand at her. Harriet tensed.

"Get away from my goddaughter," a voice said behind Lucius, and Harriet had the pleasure of watching Sirius hit the blond Death Eater with a left hook to the jaw. She began to hear small cracks and flashes of lighting as Order members began to pour into the Shrieking Shack's courtyard.

As they began to fight the Death Eaters, so did Sirius and Harriet take on Lucius and Bellatrix. The girl shot spell after spell alongside her godfather. A small glance to her side revealed a boyish grin on his face. "I'm glad you're okay!" she shouted as she disarmed Lucius. Sirius smiled at her, his grey eyes sparkling with the thrill of the fight, and she felt strangely motivated.

Harriet pointed her wand to the bag Lucius still held, but someone was quicker. Another of the Death Eaters saw her, and conjured the diadem before she could do it. She turned back to chase him, but he was gone in a flash of black robes. "They took the diadem!" she shouted.

A few feet from her, Bellatrix cackled. "Look here little girl!" the madwoman screamed. "See your precious doggy die!"

Harriet went to help her godfather when she was hit with a Cruciatus curse from behind. Lucius had his wand again, and he approached her writhing form with a sick smile. "Let's see how well the great Potter endures this," he said. The girl screamed under him, feeling as if every nerve in her body was on fire.

But it was merely a moment, as the curse was lifted and she heard the man above her groan in pain before feeling something wet and warm wetting her face. She rolled over, as much as she could, and got up. Her limbs were shaking. She spared a glance for the unmasked blond man, and she found him on all fours, spitting blood to the ground. His body was shaking, but there didn't seem to be any sign for external physical damage.

"Harry! Are you okay?" Sirius said, frantic eyes searching for her. Harriet looked up to her godfather, and behind him she saw Bellatrix's widening grim. He opened her mouth to warn him, but it was too late.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Sirius' body fell to the ground, his eyes still open and staring at Harriet in death.

Harriet's ears were filled with the woman's mocking laughter. She saw her blow a kiss at her, then retreat into the trees. The Girl-Who-Lived didn't think twice and followed her, shouting spell after spell at her back.

"I killed Sirius Black! I killed Sirius Black!" the woman sang between giggles as they approached the edge of Hogsmeade. "What will Harriet Potter do without her little doggy?"

Bellatrix stopped a few meters shy of the entrance to the town. She turned around with a lazy smile. Harriet held her wand up, teeth clenched and heart filled with anger and sadness. "I will fucking kill you," she said to the woman.

"Ah, itty bitty baby Potter wants to take revenge on her godfather?" the dark witch said with a demented smile. She opened her arms at her. "Go on, girl. Do it. You have to mean it little Potter."

Harriet thought about Sirius' smile. She thought about his arms around her, how he could make the world seem a little brighter. Bellatrix had taken it all away. The one thing she'd always wanted and had finally got, a family, destroyed in the blink of an eye by a madwoman thirsty for blood.

Don't you wish you could take revenge?

Harriet's green eyes became like poison. "Avada kedavra!"

Bellatrix's eyes widened in surprise, and she staggered backwards before the spell hit her. Harriet realized the woman had actually thought she wouldn't be able to cast it. The girl stood for a moment, catching her breath, with her mind blank. All energy had seemed to drain out of her – and in its wake, it left an empty shell. The anger and the sadness were gone, and in their place, there was only darkness.

"I am so proud of my little girl," a voice said behind her. Harriet turned around in shock. "I am loath to admit that you're surpassing me. First murder at fourteen, first killing curse at fifteen? That is a rather promising upstart. I killed my first at sixteen."

Harriet clenched her hands into fists. "Stop self-congratulating. We both know whose fault this is."

Voldemort chuckled. "Blaming others is rather mediocre of you, Harriet. Yours was the hand that moved the wand."

"You're the one pulling the strings, Riddle."

Harriet was hit with the second Cruciatus curse of the night. Over her own screams, she heard Voldemort saying "address me properly or not at all, Potter," before she lifted it.

"W-why do you keep doing this?" Harriet asked. She tried to get up but her limbs wouldn't answer her. "Why don't you kill me?"

The woman kneeled beside her prone body, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Harriet's ear with a gentleness that made her flinch. Slowly she moved her hand to the girl's face, and traced the scar on her forehead. "I know the full content of the prophecy now. What my previous self didn't –couldn't- fathom is that my power extends beyond the whim of a poor excuse for a seer. I have seen you as you are, Harriet Potter, and I shall make you deliver to me the world you were prophesized to save."

Her hand roughly took her by her jaw, and Voldemort brought their faces together. Harriet felt the older woman's black hair slide to rest against her breasts. "You are mine."

The girl felt the sound of people apparating, and Voldemort released her.

"You shouldn't have come here, Cecilia," Albus Dumbledore said.

"You are quite late to the party, Dumbledore," Voldemort chuckled. "My work here is done."

She disappeared in black smoke.