{Disclaimer}

If you recognise it from somewhere else, then I almost certainly don't own it. When Harriet references characters you don't know, take it as an invitation to catch up on your Shakespeare.

If you wish to help beta this or future works me PLEASE contact me. If you find a spelling or grammar error that takes you out of the story, feel free to tell me about it, though if it's inside quotes it might be intended as characterisation and I might choose not to fix it. I did my best to use UK spelling and phrasing over US, but I assume there are lapses, if you have further suggestions regarding that I'm open to consider them.

If there are scenes or one liners that you would like to see with these versions of these characters in future years feel free to send me those as well, no promises. Ditto if I missed obvious allusions to Shakespeare in conversations where characters WOULD have indulged.

There is already at least one companion OMAKE story in progress.

Based on feedback I am re-releasing this in smaller sections, and including disclaimers only once per year. Thanks for the feedback.

Vertical punctuation seems to be a perennial problem on this site, and the standard practice seems to be making up a personalised horizontal rule / section break. Out of respect for those listening on the fanfic app I've chosen not to get fancier than the humble ellipses.

…

This is an story about who Harry might be, in an AU that diverges before Lily and Snape go to Hogwarts. The divergence starts when Petunia is given a book called 'The Thirteen Clocks' by James Thurber. She finds the formula used by its protagonists, "If X must be done, and cannot be done by method Y, then it must be attempted by a method not-Y," to be infinitely more useful than "If at first you don't succeed, try try again," and of course she lives too early to have heard the early 21 century buzzword version of the adage, "Fail better."

Because of this strategy she manages to gain Snape's respect and help, though not the friendship for which she had originally been jealous. With access to his research and aid she managed to gain entrance to a different magical community. A community made up of contented squibs rather than jealous ones.

...

Enjoy,

H. Bregalad

Puck

Robin Goodfellow, AKA Puck, AKA Harriet Matirni, made sure the centre stage rope was wrapped securely around her left leg as she swung back toward "Hathaway's Tower." Timing it carefully, she stretched out her right toe to push off just a little bit harder. Not enough speed to frighten the audience (or her mother if she were watching). Quickly she brought her right foot back to grasp the trailing end of the rope so that her hands would be free to grab the stage left rope at the optimal time for a controlled (graceful) transfer to stage left. Once she'd wound the stage left rope around one leg while unwinding the centre stage rope from her right leg with a series of split-like swings of her legs, she pulled the centre stage rope just enough to give herself the amount of swing she'd need to finish the act.

Mostly it consisted of turning upside down, pretending to sprinkle her two older cousins with the love-in-idleness potion, and then landing gently and scampering off. And anything she did that kept those things in order would count as 'an accurate reproduction of the play' for most of her cousins, and probably the audience.

But it wouldn't satisfy "Lady Hathaway" AKA her cousin Ann, or her grandfather. To please them, all her rope work and pirouettes and attitudes would have to look not just safely controlled but actually graceful. Also Ann was addicted to tying her hair to things (like the fairy wings on her back) and making her flap them by shortening and lengthening different wisps of her hair independently of the rest. Which was fine on the ground doing nothing more complicated than walking, but changing her hair's length, unlike it's colour or it's curliness took a lot of concentration.

.

Once she was oriented to sprinkle her cousins with the 'potion' here represented by an empty (and clean, thank goodness) syrup pitcher she did manage several wing flaps as she fumbled in her pocket for the pitcher and made faces at her "sleeping" cousins. Other than that, she had a tiny bit of trouble because she forgot to tuck the pitcher back in her pocket before she tried to return to an upright position. But she managed anyway, swung off to the left and slid to the stage without any mishap worth mentioning to her mother.

She even managed a few more wing flaps as she scampered off stage and hurried to the top of the tower to school her features into the character of her next part.

She played about a third of the characters in most of the plays she was in. It was just about the only thing she was good at.

That and brewing, she was excellent at brewing, almost as good as the great Madam Solanaceae, AKA Petunia Matirni, AKA Mum, but then all her siblings and most of her cousins (except Rusty) were at least OK at brewing, as long as they had a recipe to follow so it didn't show much.

.

As she stood at the top of the tower waiting for her cue, watching her cousins wander about in long snaking not quite love triangles, more like love serpents. (ew…) she vowed she would never use or condone love potions, maybe that should include other methods of imparting compulsions. There was a sobering thought … she sort of had this mental thing she did to her hawk Hedwig now and then, which might be a compulsion. Or it might just be a means of animal communication, Mum said that there were such things, she even said a lot of the roustabouts and the some of the trainers were not just capable but fairly good at that sort of thing.

It seemed a more useful skill than changing the length of her hair.

So she wouldn't swear off compulsions just yet…

She was startled by a hoot and she looked up just in time to see an owl land on the railing right next to her shoulder.

"Well hello," she whispered, "aren't you up and about a little early?"

It hooted more insistently and held out her leg. There was a letter tied to it.

She looked closer, it was addressed "To: Harry Potter, Care of: Harriet Matirni, Matirni Travelling Circus"

"Another one?" she whispered, "Why do I always get stuck playing Costard in real life, I've never played him in Love's Labours Lost." Actually Ann had tried to get her to take the part last time the play had been restructured to allow maximum use of Harriet's skills. Harriet had refused on principle. She knew it had started because she used to be too naive to understand why any sort of communication might ought to be kept secret, and because she didn't charge as much as some of her cousins to make the deliveries and keep quiet about things. Now she did it because she found it amusing to know who was having secret communication with who.

She wasn't to the point of being able to always guess what sort of secret communication was happening before it all came out publicly, but she felt like she was getting close.

And now someone had the audacity to go by "Harry Potter" and was receiving things by owl. By Owl!

She untied the letter and stuck it in her pocket, "do I get reward or remuneration or anything for this?"

The owl looked affronted and flew away. Perhaps she'd been supposed to feed it, animals often operated by different rules.

"Fine then," she muttered and returned her attention to the stage, one more act and she'd go find her mother, and probably lunch.

...

Harriet approached the tent of "The Great Madam Solanaceae," she was relieved to see the "Closed" sign dangling over the door. She slipped inside. And double checked that she'd put on her own face, a face half like her mother's, but with a dainty version of her father's cleft chin. And a small version of her uncle's ears … She never figured out why she liked her uncle's ears, no one ever mentioned noticing anything about her ears except when she made them too big, but she liked them so she kept them, but she kept them small.

"We're closed. Come back after lunch," said her mum grumpily from where she leaned over her gilded chest of potions vials.

"But Great Madam, I'm looking for someone, you must help me find them," Harriet whinged in mock hysterics.

"Oh. Hi Harriet. Do you know what's for lunch?" said Petunia, "I mean besides birthday cake."

"Hi mum. No, I don't," said Harriet, "so do you know anyone who'd dare to go by 'Harry Potter' Or do you think it was one of the mundanes who doesn't know better." For a second that had sounded like the most innocent possibility, but then the bloody letter had arrived by owl, it would take a special kind of mundane to try to send secret post by owl and forget to pay for the assistance of the "care of" recipient.

Petunia sat up with her eyes the widest Harriet had ever seen them, and that included when she was gazing into her crystal ball. "Who wants to know?"

That was about how Harriet had felt half an hour ago.

Harriet shrugged and tossed the letter on the table, "this letter, or rather, I want to know so I can pass it on properly."

Petunia picked up the letter and glared at it like it had eaten her cousin Rusty and come back for seconds. Then she brought it to her face and sniffed it carefully.

Checking for … potions? Perfumes? Identifiable B.O.?

"Where did you get it?" said Petunia.

"An owl, waved it in my face and glared at me until I got it off his leg for him… her." It was big enough it was probably female, in most birds of pray the female was larger.

Petunia nodded and brought over the incense tray, and laid it on the table by the candle.

So, this was going to involve a long enough story that refreshing the incense was required first? But all Harriet had asked was who to pass the letter to not why the idiot had chosen that alias.

"Who uses owls to deliver post?"

"The wizarding world," said Petunia.

A shiver went up Harriet's spine, Harry Potter, hero of the wizarding world, received a letter by an owl, a probable post carrier from the wizarding world. That couldn't be a coincidence. Sent to her, the middle-child of the Great Madam Solanaceae, AKA Petunia Matirni. Unsolicited encounters with the British Wizarding World almost always went badly for members of the Matirni Travelling Circus.

With a deceptively simple, smooth motion the letter was in the candle, and a second later lay flaming into ash on the incense tray.

Harriet worked hard to suppress her surprise far enough to get her mouth closed.

Petunia's eyes rose to meet Harriet's, "consider the letter properly delivered."

Harriet felt her eyes widen as the pieces slid together, like a potion finally forming. "Are we the ones hiding Harry Potter?" whispered Harriet.

Petunia's head jerked the minutest amount, a nod, but barely large enough to be visible from two feet away, and in candle light. Anyone outside would not have seen it. Even if the door had been open.

"Dear God," whispered Harriet and sat down.

"None of that," said Petunia grabbing her shoulder and leading her toward the tent flap, "normal day, nothing unusual, just circus acts to do and the show must go on."

"Right," said Harriet.

As soon as she was following under her own power, Petunia let go.

...

They made their way to the small seating area hidden inside the ring of diner wagons. When Harriet had a meal's worth of food accumulated she went and sat near where Ann was holding court with those of her siblings and cousins who were currently under her tutelage.

Petunia sat across from her with a benevolent smile and stuffed her face with a gusto that implied that telling fortunes and selling potions took exponentially more energy than swinging from ropes and scampering all over stage did.

Harriet looked at her plate and tried to hear what Ann was saying from the end of the table.

A familiar presence sat down next to Petunia and murmured hopeful but esoteric things about the apothecary trade and Uncle Royce's enchanted trinket boxes.

Harriet looked up at her brilliant father, AKA The Great Councillor Sivo, AKA Gray Matirni. She admired his black goatee and the way it highlighted his cleft chin, and made him look haughty and enlightened.

If she wore a beard it would look like that.

Well, if she wore a beard for reasons that didn't involve the stage or being in disguise.

It was after all, all about image. About seeming to be the sort of person that people would come to get the sort of help you wanted to give them. Or from time to time, the reverse.

...

That was an interesting concept, what was it about her appearance that made everyone think she was an amateur postal worker. And the owl had come to her when she wasn't even wearing her normal features, how did it do that? Hedwig came without paying attention to her appearance too, but Harriet had figured it had something to do with the way she called her hawk and usually being the only one with a gloved fist in the air.

"Did something happen to Harriet?" Dad said.

"She saw a Hogwarts letter," said Petunia.

"Is she bothered by the diversity of subjects available there, or the thought of hawks not being allowed." There went dad again, knowing when she was thinking about Hedwig, though not what about her.

"The letter was addressed to Harry Potter," Mum said.

"Oh, what did you do?" he said

"I burned it." She said.

"Of course you did, what did you tell Harriet?"

"I didn't tell her anything, I confirmed her guess that the circus was hiding Potter."

"Ah," he said, "Harriet."

Harriet looked up.

"Awesome deduction," he grinned and held up his hand.

She gave him a high five and grinned back.

He turned back to Petunia, "What's next then? You've had more direct experience with Magical Britain than I have?"

"Well, we'll have to figure out if 'Potter' is going to attend, and then write a letter to that effect, probably we should also give a copy to Harriet and to Royce, to hand off to whatever owl stops by next, just in case one visits either of them first."

"Why did the letter come through me anyway?" said Harriet.

Gray looked up just long enough to say, "You can never tell with wizards." And he winked.

"Actually…" said Petunia.

Grey's shoulders slumped and he looked back at Harriet, "Wizards and witches or their owls… actually I'm not sure which… prefer to deliver to people with a certain type of magical core, you have it and your uncle Royce has it. Hence his ability with a wand."

"And Harry Potter?" said Harriet.

"One assumes," said Gray, "though the fact his letter was addressed through you does make one wonder."

"'Kay," said Harriet.

"Given what is public knowledge about Potter's family situation," said Petunia, "it's possible his family paid his tuition before he was old enough for his magic to be tested."

"Point," said Gray, "How much is tuition?"

"Several stone of gold."

"Actual gold?" said Gray, "my my, how decoupled."

Petunia shrugged.

"It would be a shame to let that go to waste," said Gray.

"What are you saying?" said Petunia.

"Suppose H— Potter doesn't want to attend," said Gray, "Suppose Harriet impersonated him for the purpose of not letting all that prepaid tuition go to waste."

"I don't see Royce allowing Potter not to go," said Petunia.

"I'm sure he'll insist that Potter be properly trained, just like he always has, but that doesn't necessarily include Hogwarts."

"Perhaps," said Petunia.

"How beautifully mercenary," whispered Harriet then aloud, "Um, as long as Harry doesn't expect me to be able to reimburse him."

"Good point," said Gray.

Petunia looked at her, "would you actually be interested in learning wand work, and well, whatever the wizarding world bothers to teach school children about brewing and astronomy and inscribing?"

Harriet shrugged.

"My sister," said Petunia like it annoyed her, "was said to be good with 'charms', which for wizards seems to mean a particular subsection wand work, instead of rune work."

"Odd," said Harriet.

Petunia shrugged, "Anyway, decide what you want and tell me," said Petunia she turned to Gray, "you check with Potter about what he wants and get back to me?"

"Right," said Gray slowly and got up and headed toward the wagon that he and his younger brother-in-law ran, an apothecary shop and dealer in harmless charmed trinkets of all possible types.

"Just to clarify," said Harriet, "why would Potter not want to go?"

Petunia shrugged, "lots of reasons, he might not like the idea of going all the way to Scotland to a boarding school, or leaving his family behind for all that time. He might not like their course offerings. Particularly their lack of any of the normal subjects. Other than astronomy, I believe that they have no math or science or theatre."

"Oh," said Harriet.

"And I think their animal classes don't start until third year."

"That's—" Harriet almost said 'that's not acceptable' but thought the better of it. Other than Hedwig, she didn't actually have much use for over half the familiars that her relatives kept. And the theory of animal training didn't actually appeal to her, she liked the results, she supposed, or watching the performances that could only be possible because of the results, but that was a different issue. About animal training, outside of Hedwig, she was barely more than a mundane, and with Hedwig, she wasn't much to speak of compared to several of her cousins, or any of the Persians.

"And there are other options on the continent, Your uncle and grandmother went to school in Slovenia, and several of the horse trainers went in France."

"I think I'd prefer Scotland," said Harriet, contemplating her grades with the French tutor, "if I can take Hedwig."

Petunia nodded thoughtfully.

"And if I don't have to be a boy."

Petunia's eyes narrowed, "that might take a bit more acting up front."

"In order to need less acting farther on?" said Harriet, "that sounds like the standard definition of a good cost-alleviating expense?"

Petunia nodded, "the other issue is whether you're going on Potter's Scholarship, so to speak, or if you're going as Potter's spy."

"How so?"

"If you're going as Potter, in order to be Potter's agent, that's different than going with a letter of introduction from Potter asking them to reassign his tuition accounts to your name."

"I get the business aspects, but I sense political aspects that I'm not comprehending."

"Suppose you wake up some morning with a teacher or a nurse bending over you, and wondering who in blazes you are, because you sneezed in your sleep and turned to someone else?"

"Oh," said Harriet.

"If no one except your admissions representative and your financial officer even know you have any ties to Potter, then you can appear as anyone you want, whenever you want and just be Harriet Matirni, a metamorphmagus, but if everyone knows that you are Potter, and then you stop, what are they going to think then? Of you, and of Potter."

"Yeah, I see."

"And Potter has enemies, as well as an adoring public."

"Which is why he's hiding so well I didn't even know he was around."

"Quite."

"Will I get to meet him?"

"Probably not more than you already have."

"Oh," said Harriet, trying to hide her disappointment, Harry was a known freak of nature, reputed to have survived the killing curse or at least he survived Great Britain's last dark lord who was known to use it a lot.

But then the metamorphmagus gift was also exceedingly rare, she could be her own freak of nature, whenever she wanted.

She sighed.

"Wait a second," she said, "If I don't get to meet him, how to I pretend to be him?"

"Ah," said Petunia, and shrugged, "you already look a bit like him."

"Really?" said Harriet.

"Well," said her mother, "you look a bit like all your cousins, and he is one of them."

"Oh," said Harriet looking around, "How old is he?"

Petunia leaned forward, "His eleventh birthday is today, though we generally celebrate on a different day so that no one notices."

"My birthday is today," said Harriet, "this is my birthday cake."

"Quite," Petunia said, "it's also his, though in a week or so when we put his name on a cake…"

Harriet had three cousins with a birthday in the next week, and any one of them might be the real live Harry Potter.

Five in the next two weeks if that was the better way to interpret her mother's words, and all but one of them was in her grade.

One of the older O'Learys teased them that while Irish twins were siblings born within a year of each other, 'Slovenian quadruplets' were cousins born in the same month.

...

"Are any of the others … like me?"

"What?" said Petunia.

"If tuition money weren't a problem, would anyone else I know be going?"

"Oh," said Petunia, "the Patil twins, and they are going."

"Anyone else?" said Harriet. The Patils weren't technically her cousins, thought they would run with the pack, when they weren't busy being prissy and ladylike. Apparently their Mum was the actual second-in-line-for-a-title sort of nobility, and they didn't mind acting like it on occasion. Though apparently Indian nobles had more kinds of ladylike to keep up with than their European counterparts on TV, for whatever that was worth.

"No, that's all."

"Alright," said Harriet. Who she really wanted to take with her was Ann, but … Ann was three years older, and ran the Hathaway stage. The circus needed Ann a lot more than Harriet did.

Severus

Severus Snape, youngest potions master in centuries stalked into the administration wing of the magic school with the best safety rating in the world, a safety rating that was at least 25% due to his skill in the lab, "What is it Minerva?"

"Three children of faculty of the Matirni Travelling Circus (and squib school) accepted invitations to attend Hogwarts. Would you mind doing the needful?"

"Ah, anyone I know?" said Severus.

"You'd be the best judge of that," said Minerva handing over the letters.

"Patil, Patil, Matirni, all girls, well well well." He finished flipping through and looked up, "Any special instructions?"

"Given that all the recent special instructions for interacting with the Matirni school are written by you, no, There are no new special instructions" said Minerva, "good luck."

"Thanks," said Severus, "actually a visit like this might be the best possible investment of a dose of Felix I can think of. Add that to the file." He spun on his heel and walked away.

"Oh dear," said Minerva, "Severus!"

"Yes?" he stepped backward into the room and spun to face her again.

"Look closely at the second letter that returned with the Matirni acceptance letter before you go, be prepared for anything, and try to find out what really happened to," Minerva shrugged, "Albus will want to know. Hell, even I want to know."

Severus raised an eyebrow, then flipped back through to find the letter attached to the Matirni acceptance:

...

"Dear Headmistress McGonagall,

I write to inform you that my ward Harry James Potter has opted to pursue his middle schooling on the continent, however in light of the family connections, and such, rather that putting his parent's school through the trouble of reimbursing his tuition, it seemed prudent for his cousin, my daughter, Harriet Matirni to take his place. If that is acceptable.

I apologies for the bother.

...

Regards,

~Petunia Matirni.

...

P.S. It is my memory that the school provides a guide or chaperone for those pupils who's immediate families are not able to provide them with access to the supplies listed in the admission letter you sent. Is that for mundanes only? Or is that available to all non-wizards? I ask because there are a few wizards around the camp, but some of them aren't of the most… reliable reputation."

...

"Then by all means," said Severus, "by all means we shall treat you as muggleborn, rather than expose your poor daughter to the chaperonage of an 'unreliable' wizard. Minerva did you read this?"

"Yes, I read it," she said.

"And you didn't suggest I take Sprout or Sinistra along?"

"Sinistra is on leave, feel free to ask Sprout, but don't count on anything, you know summer is her time to mind the plants that will only grow in summer."

"And the Patils? Wouldn't they be from a part of India where… Merlin! I'm going to have to take three muggleborn girls and at least one muggle parent along with me."

Minerva sighed, and picked up a stack of letters, "Just because I can generally manage two to three pupils a day doesn't mean I expect you to also, take until the end of the week if you prefer."

She turned to the fireplace and floo'd away to someplace where she could apparate.

Grumbling mentally Severus moved in the same direction, flooing first to his office to pick up two doses of Felix Felicis, then flooing to the ministry so he could track down where the circus was camped this week.

{End Chapter 1}