This isn't new ground. If you've read Invisus you've read what is in this little ficlet. But I thought some people would like to jump ahead. I get it, there are a lot of Hogwarts Year 1 fics out there. If you'd like to read Memoriae and want the gist of what happened in Invisus- here you go. All gisty.

Enjoy

It starts with a small girl with red hair and hazel eyes learning what a mother is.

Tears hit a worn library copy of Peter Pan, and Harriet Potter realizes that she is unloved and hated. She realizes that she is utterly alone.

She learns to pull in. To be silent, quiet, and unnoticed. There are benefits to this skill, the biggest being that she isn't beaten as often by her Uncle or cousin.

It isn't right. She knows it isn't. Teacher do nothing. Strangers do even less. Only Harri can affect her fate, so she relies only on herself.

It starts with a snake.

It's her first inkling of hope. Harri Potter sends a snake to Brazil and she wonders if maybe she is special after all.

This is proven correct.

It's raining, she's in a shack on a rock, and a giant man tells her that she's magical. That her parents were magical. That her mother, Lily , had loved her enough to die for her.

It's the first time Harri has ever heard her mother's name, and it's the sweetest word in all existence.

The fantasy can't last. There had to be a catch. Despite being 'famous', the other shoe drops rather quickly.

It comes in the form of two words on her wrist, 'Avada Kedavra' in emerald green.

Soulmate.

It's supposed to mean someone who loves her. It's supposed to mean that Harriet Potter never has to be alone again.

Instead, it's the words of her mother's killer.

If anyone found out, if anyone knew, Harri Potter would be castigated from wizarding society.

No one can ever know.

She's on a train, and it might be love at first sight.

Harri has never had friends before. Yet here she sits with Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Neville Longbottom.

They're kind. They're nervous like she is. They know so much about the world that Harri is entering.

More than anything else, they seem to like her. Has anyone ever liked her before? No one comes to mind.

So when a sharp-faced boy enters the train compartment and Hermione Granger's world falls apart, Harri swears to herself that she will defend these people with everything she has.

The world is harsh and full of sharp edges, she's been pricked plenty of times. Hermione Granger's hand is soft.

It should stay that way.

A hat shouts Gryffindor four times and Harri's world seems complete.

She's moving around in a world of magic and wonder. As long as she keeps her soulmate to herself, nothing could go wrong.

Except, there is a Potions Master.

Severus Snape had not been looking forward to Harriet Potter. He had dreaded the day that she walked through his classroom door for ten years.

He lashes out, certain that he is looking at James Potter incarnate.

His anger fades at once when Harriet Potter disappears and all his training as a teacher of children rushes to the forefront of his mind. Children don't turn invisible. Their magic is too weak and underdeveloped. There is only a single reason that Harriet Potter, at eleven years old, could manage such a feat.

Abuse.

She's much worse than he ever expected. She's Lily's hair, Jame Potter's eyes, and Severus Snape's childhood rolled into one.

There is a mystery.

A corridor guarded by a three-headed dog. A Gringotts vault emptied the very day that it's almost robbed. Unicorns dying in the forest.

There is a troll on Halloween, a friendship forged stronger than ever, and two heartbroken first-year girls who swear that they will be each other's soulmates.

Harri keeps her secret from Hermione, but she shares that love will never be in her future.

She's wrong.

Severus Snape, who never intended to let anyone into her heart again, finds himself privy to the horrors of Harri's childhood. It's trauma that he'd rather not see, but he knows that in a way he caused this. By telling the prophecy to Voldemort he had condemned Lily to death and Harriet Potter to a life of abuse.

Worse still, he likes the girl. She shares her mother's brilliance at potions. She's kind, loyal, and witty. She's just as vulnerable, hot-headed, and as impulsive as Snape was at eleven.

By some strange twist of fate, Severus gains custody of Harri two days before Christmas. The memories he has collected are more than enough to ensure that she never goes back to those muggles again. He's sure its a mistake, that he will only ruin Harri and hurt her more. She's damaged, just as damaged as he is. Surely he will only break her more.

Two nights later he knows that there is no turning back. Harri is out of bed and standing before a mirror that shows your deepest desire. Harri sees her family, alive and whole She sees a soulmark that isn't from Voldemort. She sees a normal and happy childhood.

It's too much, and the sobbing girl is bitterly alone on the outside looking in. He pulls her away, "men have wasted away," he says. He looks into the glass depths and doesn't just see Lily. He sees a small girl with fire red hair that was never touched by abuse or the horrors of Voldemort.

It is then that Severus Snape knows that he loves Harriet Potter like the daughter he would never have.

The nightmares begin.

Her dormmates worry, and it is only the press of Hermione's body against her own at night that keeps from thrashing and screaming.

They learn a name, Nicholas Flamel, and about a stone that grants eternal life.

Harri decides to do something she has never done before, she will ask Professor Snape about what is happening. She doesn't trust adults, she's never been given a reason to, but maybe her new guardian will be different.

One small miscommunication later and it all comes spilling out. Snape knows the truth about her soulmate.

"He will use you to conquer death once and for all," he tells her.

She faints and awakens to a conversation between two men. They know more about her life, her tie to Voldemort, than she does. Dumbledore will not tell her more. How can she trust people who refuse to tell her the truth? She's a child of abuse, of learning that adults won't help you, and it has hardened Harri. What fragile trust she has for Snape or Dumbledore fractures.

She smuggles a dragon out of the school and gets detention for her trouble.

Harri meets three centaurs and a Dark Lord in the forest.

There is pain from her scar like she has never felt before. Her magic lashes out and pushes the threat away, but it seems ineffective. The magic from the wraith is familiar and so much like her own that it is disconcerting.

She is saved by a centaur who call the Dark Lord her 'Twin Flame'. It's a title she doesn't understand.

Snape says that she shouldn't worry. That the stone is safe. That the Dark Lord can't touch her.

He's brushing off her fears, not assuaging them in any way.

The trust she has for him cracks.

The nightmares get worse.

They realize that Hagrid got the dragon egg in exchange for how to get past his three-headed dog.

Harri tries to go to an adult, she really does, but as always the adults aren't there when she needs them. Dumbledore is gone and Snape won't do anything to help.

It's up to Harri to save the stone.

She expects to be alone since she's only ever had herself to rely on. This time things are different. This time she has help in the form of Ron, Hermione, and Neville. She isn't sure when she gained friends like this, but somehow she has.

It's a blur of a three-headed dog, a strangling plant, a room full of flying keys, and a chess match that ends with Ron bloody on the floor.

It ends with Harri and Hermione standing before a fire.

"You're a great witch, Harriet Potter. I love you."

It's the first time anyone has every told Harri that they love her. She supposes that if she dies trying to save the world for people like Hermione Granger then that's a good way to go. Nobel even.

"You're the first person in the whole world I ever loved," says a broken girl with a broken smile.

She drinks the potion and walks through fire.

She had sworn to herself that she wouldn't say a word to Voldemort if she should meet him to save the stone.

She wouldn't have. Except… Voldemort lies.

"Your mudblood mother was the worst of all… tried to give me you in exchange for her life."

Harri knows this isn't true. Harriet had spent her entire childhood believing one single thing- that at one point her mother had loved her. It has only been affirmed by Severus Snape and Remus Lupin. Lily Potter would never NEVER trade her daughters life away.

"LIAR" rips out of Harri's throat, and Voldemort knows .

It changes everything.

Voldemort doesn't want her dead, but he does want the stone.

When Quirrel grabs at her, it is Lily Potter's love that saves her. It blisters his skin and Harri pushes every ounce of magic she has into the pain she is causing. She is blinded by white-hot agony, but when she can see again Quirrel is gone, nothing but ash.

"I'll… find you… Harriet..." hisses the wraith who swirls like wind around her.

Harri sees only black.

She wakes in the Hospital Wing, the stone safe, her friends alive, and her guardian worried out of his mind.

"He knows now," Harri tells Dumbledore. She pleads for the truth of what the future will hold, what secret it is that Dumbledore knows about her life.

"I must ask again Harri, that you let this be an answer delayed. Not today, not now. You will know one day... "

Instead, Dumbledore gives her the certainty of her mother's love. The protection in her blood would not exist without the love of Lily Potter.

Later, Snape isn't kind about Harri running off to face the Dark Lord.

"You weren't listening," Harri insists.

"Don't you understand Harriet! Quirrell was never going to get the Stone. You refused to trust me when I told you that, and you ran headlong into danger. You could have DIED."

Oh

Severus Snape loved her.

What an odd thing.

Harriet Potter had lived her whole life being hated and unlovable. Snape… he had been worried. For her own sake. Even knowing that Voldemort might return. Even knowing that Voldemort was her soulmate.

There was only one reason that Snape would still worry about her while knowing the unforgivable truth.

He loved her.

"You don't know your punishment yet, but I promise it will be a long summer of thinking about how to moderate your Gryffindor tendencies."

Well, maybe he didn't love her that much.