CHAPTER ONE:

So Much for Making Friends

Harriet Potter's P.O.V

Harriet Potter was going to Hogwarts, and from there, everything would fall into place. She knew it would. She would settle into Gryffindor's tower, as her mother and father had, and her grandparents, and theirs before them. She would make friends with Longbottom's, Weasley's, Wood's and Bell's as many of those from house Potter had done for centuries before her.

She'd play Quidditch, like her father. Perhaps she would be gifted in Potions, as her mother had been. She would study hard, excel in Defence against the Dark arts, and from there, when all was said and done, she would join the Auror programme, and, finally, she would, maybe, just a little, be the kind of daughter her parents could have been proud of.

That's all Harriet wanted.

She had it all mapped out, you see. She was a Potter, and that meant something. Being an Auror was in her blood. Fighting the good fight, saving people, helping make the world a better place one felon at a time… That's what Potter's were. As far back as the great family tree went, there they stood. Auror Hardwin. Auror Henry. Auror Fleamont. Auror Euphemia. Auror James. Auror Lily. Some of the best Auror's ever recorded, their names lined the Order of Merlin memorial wall in the Ministry of Magic. Auror Potters.

The lot of them.

Well, not all. There were the few Healers sprinkled on her family tree. But, well, as her godfather Sirius could attest, Healing wasn't in Harriet's deck of cards. The last time she had tried, on a poor alley cat with a broken leg, under the watchful eye of her other godparent and carer, Remus Lupin, of course, she may have… Accidentally, and she really did swear it was accidental, made the poor fluff-ball explode in a splatter of bone marrow and chunks when it had scratched her hand.

But that was an accident. It didn't mean anything. She was only a bit too excessively enthusiastic and disorderly with her magic. Even Sirius had said so. These things happen, he said. It wasn't dark magic. She was a Potter, an heir to one of the highest standing light families, and Potter's couldn't preform dark magic, just as, in Sirius's words, a bloody Malfoy couldn't preform Healing magic because it was too light.

Still, even if it had caused Remus and Sirius to lock themselves away in the library of Grimmauld Place, Sirius blasting an old record from the band Queen, which he only ever did when Remus and he were arguing and didn't want Harriet to hear, it was all too soon brushed under the rug and promptly forgotten. It was an accident, as with the other times.

The few times Harriet had met her muggle relatives, not something she enjoyed doing, no matter how much Sirius told her family was important, it was an accident when she ballooned aunt Marge and sent her floating away across the skies of Surrey. It was an accident when she locked Dudley into that python cage at the zoo last year. It was an accident that the gobstoppers the child at the local park, the one Sirius used to take her to play, when she made a rather nasty joke on Harriet's hair, turned to rocks and spiders, breaking her front teeth. And Mrs. Lavinstone, Harriet's tutor… Well, it was best not to think of her, but that had been an accident too.

All of it.

Accidental flares of magic in young children were common, and it meant nothing. Sirius said so, and as an eleven-year-old girl, who idolized her godfather and the only father figure she had ever known, what Sirius said was law. Harriet was a Potter, and that was all that needed to be known. So when she got onto the Hogwarts Express on the 1st September, trunk full and high on a type of excitement that only children can truly understand, after giving a quick kiss and hug goodbye to her godparents standing teary eyed on the platform, accidental magic, exploding cats, a screaming Dudley, and shattered teeth and bleeding gums were the last thing on her mind.

She was doing it! She was going to Hogwarts! She was going to be a Gryffindor! She was going to be a good, noble witch! Just like her mother and father, and so many Potters before them.

The compartment door slammed open, jolting Harriet away from the window, snapping her from watching as the rolling green hills of Scotland trundled passed. A boy stood at the crux of the door, half hanging in from the wide walkway. His pale face was splashed with taupe freckles, blending into the smudge of dirt he had smeared across his nose like a shooting comet. His curly red hair blazed amber under the evening sun.

"Excuse me, do you mind? Everywhere else is full."

Harriet shook her head. His accent was thick, steering you's to be ya's and mind to be min'. The red hair. The freckles. The lazy accent. Harriet knew who he was. How could she not? She had seen Arthur Weasley once, lost amongst the crowd of the drab Ministry workers when Remus had taken her to meet Sirius after he came back from a month-long mission.

"No, not at all."

Merlin, she sounded a bit too eager, didn't she? Voice pitched to a high crack like a whip spitting in the air. Harriet couldn't help it. She didn't have many friends. Well, none really, as sad as that sounded.

Sirius had supposed it was for the best, just until she could get her accidental magic under control. Remus, at the time, had bit back with a you can't hide it forever, Padfoot. They're going to know soon enough. Mordred knows what it was, but it had led to their biggest fight, Remus sleeping on the couch and a cold, almost silent war raging between the two, until Remus broke and brought Sirius a box of whiskey truffles, and promised not to bring it, again Harriet didn't know what this it was, up again.

Yet, there was no Sirius here to rush her away from an inquisitive wizarding child, no shop to dash her out of when a store clerk got a bit too close in Diagon Alley, and there was no birthday invitations from pureblood families Sirius could decline with a soft, you can go next year, Harry. Next year, however, never came.

But it had, hadn't it?

Next year, in some abstract way, was right here, today. As this was her chance to make her parents proud, to make Sirius and Remus proud, to prove she could control her magic, she could be good, this too was her chance to make friends. And suddenly, she was terrified. What did friends do? What did you say? What shouldn't you say?

"I'm Ron, by the way. Ron Weasley."

The ginger boy introduced himself as he shuffled into the compartment, dropping to the opposite bench in a flutter of robe and sagging shoulder. Ah, familiar ground! You could always spot a pureblood as soon as they opened their mouth. They always made sure to announce their family name before much else. It was common decency; Remus had told her. Best you know if you're in the presence of your own kind, someone who's magic wouldn't lash out and hurt you on instinct, rather than unintentionally finding yourself boxed in by those of a different shade.

"I'm Harry. Harriet Potter."

Ron's mouth flapped open, and there, mushed into his back molars, Harry could see the remnants of some sort of sandwich crust. She tried, she really, truly did, not to wince.

She failed miserably.

"Blimey! You're the Potter's kid! Is- Is it true? I mean, did they really…"

Harry frowned, voice slick like oil.

"Did they what?"

Harry didn't know why she was angry. Livid. She just… Was. She could feel it, like a burning lump of coal in her chest, lit and hot and scorching.

"Did they really hold back Grindelwald? Well, until Sirius Black got there?"

The heat in her chest dampened, simmering down from a boil to a soft, glowing sizzle in her sternum. It didn't fully go away. It never did. Nevertheless, Harry painted on a smile, maybe a little too sharply, wiggled in her seat and nodded.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah they did."

No one knew what Lily and James had been doing in Hogsmeade that day. No one knew why they had brought their fifteen-month-old child along when, all across Britain, a red alert had been given for Grindelwald's sudden appearance in the highlands. No one knew much at all, in truth. Sirius too, despite the Ministry's constant pushing, stayed mum on the matter.

They knew Lily, James and an infant Harry were there that day. They knew Grindelwald appeared somehow, for some bloody reason. They knew a fight broke out. They knew James and Lily had grievously injured Grindelwald. They knew Grindelwald bounced back, killing both her mother and father, and somewhere, in that mess, Sirius Black had appeared, reasons unknown, saw his dead friends littering the street, baby Harriet being carried away by Grindelwald, and completely lost it.

Apparently, Sirius had not even left a body behind to be buried.

Everybody knew the actions of that day. It had been splashed across every wizarding newspaper. The greatest dark wizard, dead at last! Potter heroes lost their lives for the greater good! Sirius Black hailed Champion! No one knew the reasons behind those actions. Not one. No. That wasn't quite right, was it? A few knew, no one was speaking.

James and Lily were dead. Sirius never spoke more than he had to on that day. Albus Dumbledore, who had been there but for unknown reasons incapacitated to fight Grindelwald, would not speak either. To be completely honest, Harriet thought that last one, even if he did finally break his silence, couldn't be trusted fully.

He was bloody senile.

The one time she had the pleasure of meeting one of the chief wizards of their time had been when she had been with Sirius, collecting her new books for the on coming school year in Flourish and Blotts, only a few months ago. He had greeted Sirius with a smile and hearty pat on the shoulder, looked right down at her and then, abruptly, he had seemed so very sad. It had been strange, so very strange, that smile… Harriet had never known a smile could look so tortured.

You have your father's eyes. That was all Dumbledore had said, before he was sweeping away in a swoosh of pink robe, off to welcome other families. Which, of course, was complete codswallop. Harriet had her mother's eyes. Everybody knew that. She looked like her father, but she had her mother's eyes. So, yes. Harriet thought Dumbledore might be creeping into dementia, or the poor guy needed new glasses.

"Wicked!"

Harry jumped at Ron's sudden exclamation. Anew, she grimaced. No. Not wicked. Definitely not in the way, with his toothy grin and sparkly eyes, Ron meant wicked. He opened his mouth again, likely to press for more information, information Harriet didn't have, when the screech of wheels cut him off. A trolley, filled to the brim with shiny colourful sweets and fizzing pops, came to a squealing halt at their door. When the old lady pushing the trolley smiled warmly at them, Harriet was immensely grateful to her and her inadvertent distraction.

"Anything off the trolley, dears?"

Ron dug a hand into his trouser pocket, producing a crumpled roll of wrapped ham sandwiches. Well, there was the culprit of the crusty molar.

"No, thanks, I'm all set."

He smacked his lips, as if to make a point. Yet, his face said anything but as he almost languishedly gawked at the pile of sugar quills. Here was her chance! Harry may not be the best at social interactions, and maybe she always said the wrong things at the wrong time, a habit Remus said she had picked up from Sirius, but money didn't speak, did it? Everybody liked gifts. Digging into her own pocket, she plucked out her coin purse and held it out to the lady.

"We'll take the lot!"

And it worked. Ron Weasley was all to happy to help her make her way through the mountain of sugary treats, and, right there and then, Harry really, really thought this was it. She'd done it. She'd made a friend.

And then the blasted rat showed its horrid little face and it all went tumbling down hill.

While Ron was on his fifth chocolate frog, and Harry had just barely unwrapping her second blood lollipop, the mangy little thing came scuttling out his pocket, tunnelling its beady head into the empty carton of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean, squeaking distastefully.

"This is Scabbers, by the way. Pitiful, isn't he?"

Harry nodded, casting a quick glance to the cage beside her, housing her own familiar, Hedwig's white feather's ruffling in agitation at the sight of the rat. No doubt, he wanted to eat the Merlin damned rodent. Harry, idly, was in half a mind to let him.

All she had to do was slowly reach over and unlock his cage. Mother nature would do the rest. She managed to pull her hand back just as it was lifting from her knee. Killing someone else's familiar, she thought, was decidedly bad, and she wasn't bad. She was good. She was. Still…

She had never liked rats.

"Just a little bit."

Ron flicked the empty packet from the Chocolate frog to the growing pile besides him, using the tatty sleeve of his jumper to roughly wipe at his lips. His mouth was still full when he spoke.

"Fred gave me a spell to turn him yellow. Want to see?"

This smile was true, dimpled and all, as Harry nodded so fast her curls, which had escaped her braid, whipped her in the eye.

"Yeah!"

Ron cleared his throat, plucked his wand free, and aimed the tip right at the rat's head.

"Ahem. Sun-"

The door to their compartment crashed open again. A girl, around Harry's own age, came storming in without so much as a how-do-you-do, already dressed in her blank sorting robes. Her head was tilted high, her nose almost directly in the air, forcing the short girl to stare down it at them. Nonetheless, Harry's attention was ensnared by her hair. If she had any previous thoughts that her own was wild, this girls explosion of bushy brown curls made her appreciative to her own, most often than not, bird's nest.

And that was saying something.

"Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville's lost one."

Ron scoffed.

"No."

And if it was left at that, if this new girl had just nodded and walked away, everything would have been different. But she didn't. She saw Ron's wand, saw it point at the bloody rat, and her eyebrows shot up high as she pressed in deeper in the compartment, nose as snobbishly high as her tone was snooty.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see then."

Ron straightened in his seat, coughed once more, and began to wave his wand about in sweeping, lazy arches.

"Sunshine, daises, butter mellow, turn this stupid fat rat yellow!"

There was a pitiable sputter as a zap of pale magic left his wand and snipped at the rat's bum. The rat didn't so much as jump. Ron shrugged. The girl, however, crossed her arms over her chest and, obnoxiously, one of her Mary-jane clad feet began to pat, pat, pat on the floor. For a flash, Harry saw herself, in her mind, kicking her own leg out, sweeping the foot, pulling, maybe stomping right on the ankle, the snap of bone echoing in her ear, matching the excited thump of her heart.

Harry obstinately shoved that thought away before it could fully form.

That would be mean. Mean meant bad. She wasn't bad. She really wasn't.

"Are you sure that's a real spell? Well, it's not very good, is it? Of course, I've only tried a few simple spells myself, and they've all worked for me. For example..."

Struggling to get a hold of herself, Harry couldn't do much else before the girl was sauntering over, barging passed Ron to sit in front of Harry near the windows primly. In a blink, a wand was aimed right at Harry's face.

"Oculu-"

Harry lashed out. Her hand shot up, grasping the witches wrist, and then she was ramming it into the window, the wrist thwacking into the glass with a crack and sickening snap. The girl cried out, her wand dropping to the carpeted floor between their feet. Before Harry knew exactly what she was doing, before she could control herself, Harry was up and out her seat, the girls wrist forgotten, her own wand out and in her hand, hot in her palm with restrained magic, tip jabbing painfully underneath the girls jaw, forcing her head to tilt back, and up, looking at her with alarmed, wide eyes.

She didn't look so fucking superior now, did she?

Ron jumped up from his seat, backing up a step on shaky limbs, his damned rat now shrieking at being shoved off his leg in his hast to get up and away. The girls arm snapped to her chest, cradling the limb as she gasped and stuttered. That burning was back, right in Harry's chest, an inferno now, and there, deep in the hollows of her gut, was something heavy, squirming, cold and dark. Snakes hissing and coiling.

"I-I was only going to fix your glasses!"

Harry couldn't control her breathing, weighty in her chest. Nor could she dampen down those flames licking at her. Or control that squirming slick feeling deep inside. When she spoke, Harry didn't recognize her own voice, as biting and rough as it had become.

"Word of advice, don't aim your wand at someone's face, without invitation or explanation, if you don't want a bloody duel! The next person you try that on might not be so kind!"

Yet, Harry did succeed in forcing herself to lower her wand from the girls neck. She didn't want to, she really didn't want to, there was something nasty inside, something with her own voice, whispering and coaxing, telling her to do it, do it, shoot a spell off, any, just teach the girl a lesson, don't let her get away with aiming her wand at her, don't give her the opportunity to do it again, just one quick spell…

The girl dived down, using her good hand to snatch up her wand at Harry's feet, and then she was running for the door, voice high and distressed.

"I was only trying to help!"

Harry snapped, trailing after her into the walkway of the train, shouting at her quickly retreating back.

"Well next time think, you bloody moron! Or a broken wrist will be the least of your worries!"

The girl, who Harry thought she heard sobbing, shouldered passed a few second and third years who were loitering in the hall, a few more nosy heads from neighbouring compartments poking out at the loud confrontation. Harry didn't care. She was still trying to stop herself from flinging a hex at the girls quaking back. Ron edged out beside her.

"That was a bit harsh, mate. She was just trying to help. It was harmless. There was no need to hurt and shout at her."

Harry whirled on him. Why was she the bad guy? She hadn't done anything wrong! It was the girl who, with not a single word, pulled a wand out at her! Muggleborn or not, which it was likely the former, she should have enough brains not to do so. It was like a muggle pulling out a gun, taking aim at someone's head, and then when the person reacted, begged off with the excuse that they only wanted to shoot the fly off their ear.

"She aimed her wand at my face with no explanation. She's lucky that's all I did."

Ron was silent, eerily so, as he looked at her. And looked. And looked. And looked some more. Harry didn't know what he was looking for, what he could possibly find in her eyes, but find something he did. Something sparked in the far recess of his eye, deep in the pupil, something that looked like… Fear. Then he was backing away.

"I'm going to go see if she's alright."

Harry reached for him, finger's stretching for shoulder, trying to explain, trying to… Do something. Yet, he yanked himself away, darting down the hall the same way the girl went. How did it all go so horribly wrong so fast?

"No- Wait… I'm sorry… I…"

But he was already gone. Done the hall. Away. Harry's hand flopped to her side. Most of the hallway cleared, largely noticing whatever that had happened was over now, but Harry couldn't unglue her feet from the spot they had taken root in. She… She didn't mean to scare anyone. Hurt anyone. She never did.

She just couldn't help herself.

That's when she spotted him. Another boy. First year. Unrobed. His hair an astonishing shade of platinum, slicked back from his face. He was standing at the compartment next to hers, leaning on the door frame casually, head cocked to the side with one silver brow arched imperiously high on his pointy face. He had likely heard the entire thing. He grinned at her brightly, about to take a step forward. Harry glowered and marched back into her compartment, slamming the door shut behind her with a thump.

So much for making friends.

Thoughts?

A.N: So, that didn't quite go to plan for poor Harriet, lol. I know this is a step back from last chapter time wise, but I thought it would be good to get a feel for Harriet before we jump right into it. Next chapter, we pick up right as we left in the prologue, back with Harriet after she got sorted into Slytherin. And for those confused about how dark or light magic works in this fic, why magic is divided in this AU, it will be explained as we go along, as I can't quite say much without ruining the plot because I have a few twists coming up.

So, this update was fast! I only published chapter one two days ago, but, well, here it is! I'm not a fanfiction writer who likes sitting on her chapters, so I normally post as I write. However, if quick updates aren't your thing, let me know and I'll try to slow down, as I know they're not everyone's cup of tea.

All that nonsense done, thank you all for the lovely follows and favourites! I hope you liked this chapter and enjoyed the deepening mystery of the whole Grindelwald, Sirius and Potter's fiasco I have going on, and I really do wish you will enjoy what I've cooked up to come next. As always, if you have a spare moment, drop a review. They keep the little hamster in the wheel running and the fingers typing!