The Sorting Hat had no idea what to do. It had been designed to sort children; it had a single mission. It was to be placed on their heads, it would read their futures, the present, the pasts, and it would decide. It would sort them accordingly.

And it was stumped. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time it had happened either.

The more recent times had been the young Riddle boy who had been the perfect Slytherin, but with the times and with his future laid out before him, the Sorting Hat had been uncertain. Unsure if it ought to place Riddle where every sign said that he fit it, or to change up the future as it had not been designed. After that, it had been the girl with the bloody hair from that family. The first witch from that line to come to Hogwarts, who brought chaos in her wake and yet so few noticed.

It served that it would be her child that would stall him once again.

Hariel Lilith Potter, the child of Lily and James, and she was like her parents… a hat stall. As it looked into her head, it saw no clear future, just as it had not for Lily. The girl was a ghost to the future despite how entangled with fate she was. The Sorting Hat then cursed the beings that foolishly chosen a child like this for their chosen one. They had no idea what they had started.

No, it's mission was to sort.

Its first instinct was Slytherin, but the child had so little ambition. Her cunning was careless, accidental, and her ambitions were simply to live. A worthy goal the Sorting Hat believed, but not one that ought to fit Slytherin.

She had the mind of a Ravenclaw, intelligence, and a curiosity for a specific topic just as her mother had. But she would not thrive in that house; the knowledge and the claws would destroy her humanity, creating the darkest of beings as a result.

Hufflepuff was simply out of the question, they were too kind to handle it, and the more delicate children it had placed in that house would be eaten alive.

On the other hand, Slytherin's children could handle her, as could their head of house. He had been Lily's friend, he knew the warning signs… but would he see past the hatred? The Hat didn't know.

So that left Gryffindor. Perhaps the lions would be brave enough to handle it, one had already tried it seemed.

"Gryffindor!" the Sorting Hat finally said, and Hariel's unholy grin lit up her face. Calm as could be, she slipped from her stool and offered a polite bow to the Hat as if it had done anything. As if it hadn't been thinking of the survival of the other children the entire time it had sorted her… and her mother.

Funnily, the Hat could see Lily in the girl far more than James. For Lily too had bowed to it wearing the same bloodthirsty grin. But Lily had hidden her gifts, well-practiced in doing so by then thanks to her friendship with the boy. Hariel on the other hat… she didn't bother.

In Godric's name. The school was doomed.

Hariel turned on her heel and glided to her seat as the foolish lions cheered over getting her. They didn't question the fact that none of the ghosts had been seen since the exact moment her heel touched down on school grounds. Or how the Malfoy child slid down in his chair in pure relief after he'd mistakenly gained her attention before the sorting. They were happy to have the girl-who-lived, a genuinely heinous title for a child such as her.

They would learn the Sorting Hat figured and turned its attentions to the next child hopeful that the next necromancer to pass through under his Hat would be easier to sort. But considering they would likely be her child, it was unlikely.

A problem for later it decided.

Hariel was distinctly pleased with her meal. The elves must have done their research before serving her for the meat was bloody, and the death cap was the exact level of deadly that she liked. She slapped Ron's hand away from her plate before he took one of the mushrooms and frowned at him. "Those are mine." She told him firmly.

"Sorry, Harry." He grinned and backed off. Hariel rolled her eyes at him; if he wanted to try poison, he'd have to start far smaller than death caps. Perhaps the elves would help her dose him to gain some proper resistance. He'd need it for when she invited him to her home for the winter holidays as she'd already decided to do. Though hopefully, he'd do a bit better than Dudley had. Honestly, the boy couldn't even handle some house-hold cleaning supplies shoved into his morning milk.

"Hey, Harry?"

"Mhm." Her teeth crunched through an eyeball and knew her grandfather would be positively upset at her for not eating like the lady she was. But honestly, she was starving, the candy on the train hadn't been nearly enough, and Barghest had stolen her proper lunch once she revived him… actually, what had her cat gotten up to anyway? Hm, he'd turn up.

"What did you do to Malfoy?"

'Malfoy?' Hariel shot a look toward the snake table in disappointment. She'd wanted to end up with that interesting boy, but sadly the Hat hadn't deemed Slytherin appropriate for her. While that did bring her closer to her parents, she was still upset Malfoy hadn't ended up with her and Ron.

Waiting for McGonagall to return as one large boy cried in the back about his toad - Hariel refused to look back at the child as Barghest circled her legs innocently - the blonde had stepped up to face her. He'd insulted Ron quite wonderfully before offering his hand and name in a vague offer. Hariel was relatively sure he was offering himself up to become one of her minions, and she'd been willing to accept.

But first, she had to test him. So she'd leaned in and offered him a return offer, perfectly reasonable she thought.

"Say, do you have any attachment to your second kidney?" she lifted her hand from where she'd pricked him, causing blood to well up, and licked it, "you're the same blood type as my grandfather, and I need to replace his."

For some reason, he'd gone very red after that, almost the same shade as Ron had after the well-placed insults. But before he had been able to answer McGonagall had returned and they'd been forced to split apart.

All well, she could still get his kidney later, Grandfather told her where to find the Slytherin common rooms.

"Where are the ghosts? They're never this late?" an upper-year said, and Hariel perked up.

"Ghosts?" Hermione Granger asked, leaning toward them in curiosity.

"Yes." The upper-year said, "they usually take a sneak peek at the first years, in greeting. Then they'll show up about now in the great hall to meet the new students of each house. They do it every year."

"Except this year evidently." Commented another and Hariel rubbed the back of her neck, her eyes slid past the students to the very dead woman crawling along the floor beside them. She lugged her body across the ground, dragging her bloodied form because her legs were blown right off, and Hariel frowned. Did they not see her there? Or, if not her, then what about the young girl hanging off Albus Dumbledore's shoulders?

Hariel shot a look at the head table, and the girl grinned her way and winked. Scrunching her nose, Hariel turned away and internally shrugged. She'd promised her grandfather she wouldn't scare them away, and she intended to keep that promise.

"Maybe they're having a party?"

"Maybe… it's still weird though."

Hariel felt an odd prickle at the back of her neck, absently she lifted her gaze and locked her eyes with one of the professors watching her. As she did, her scar sparked up in delightful pain, and she felt herself relaxing. The sensation was odd, but not unpleasant; she wanted more- and it ended as one of the pair looked away, leaving only the dark-haired man locking gazes with her. Hariel instantly turned her attention to the one that looked away, chasing the sensation, but he refused to look back.

"Who is that?" she demanded interrupting some conversation between Hermione Granger and what had to be Ron's elder brother.

"Who?" the boy asked.

"The one with the turban?"

"Ah, that's Professor Quirrel, he's teaching defense this year."

"May Circe rest his soul."

"What?" echoed several first years as their attention shot the seventh year that had spoken. At their attention, the boy sighed.

"I've been here through six different defense professors, one went mad, one was first in the first month, one we never found, one was arrested by Yule, one just went missing on her vacation, and one died. If Qurriel's up next well… he's doomed. I don't want to imagine what sort of cursed fate is in store for him, it's sure to be bad… especially this year."

"What's different this year?"

"Isn't that obvious?" the boy stared toward Hariel and the scar at her forehead, "we've got Potter this year." Which, of course, was right, but not in the way he was expecting.

He wasn't sure at first, which in retrospect, was ridiculous; he never should have missed it, not with those eyes. But like he had with Lily, Severus had not noticed because he'd been too focused on something else. For Lily, it was their friendship; she had been his only friend, his escape from his home life, and because of what she was to him… he overlooked what he shouldn't. Like the midnight walks through the graveyard, like the cat, like the bloody quality to her hair, or the way she'd hurl knives at her sister - he hadn't liked Petunia anyway.

With Hariel, it was the name. Potter, his most hated enemy, the one that won Lily in the end. Who got passed all the… death, to be with her when Severus hadn't been able to. And for the last decade, he'd ignored it, and he'd hated her. She was a Potter, she'd be as spoiled and stupid as James Potter had been. She'd be clueless to reality, and beyond reckless with her life despite Severus swearing with his own to keep her alive.

And then she breezed into the Great Hall, and he'd been forced to see.

Ebony hair, not dark brown as James' had been. Killer green slightly disguised behind glass, the exact shade Lily had possessed. The unholy way she glided toward the Hat, the hat stall… and then the curtsy. All that he could ignore by force, but then there was the food she ate. The bloody steak, the death caps - he was a potioneer, he knew precisely what those mushrooms were, and Hariel did not so much as blink as she ate the deadly dinner. The way the ghosts avoided the room just as they had for Lily.

She was the same.

Severus couldn't look away from her as he came to a few realizations during the span of dinner. First, Hariel was James Potter's spawn yes, but there was far more of Lily in her than Potter. So as much as he hated the man, as much as he wanted to take her as only James', he couldn't. Second, she was a necromancer, a budding one, and that changed quite a bit.

Severus' life was attached to Hariel's due to the words he'd offered Albus Dumbledore. If she died, so too did he. And if she were a normal girl, that would be a huge problem. But she was not. She was an Evans… a necromancer. Hariel was like Lily, one foot in the afterlife and one in the living, and that made her distinctly resistant to death, in an unusual way. And while that put his heart at ease, Severus also realized that Dumbledore was doomed.

The Headmaster was expecting a savior, a child born to save them from the Dark Lord… and they'd gotten a necromancer.

A laugh escaped Severus' lips causing Minerva to spit out her drink and Filius to gawk. And he covered his lips, hiding the high amusement on his face. The things Lily had been able to do, Severus had seen it, seen her grow in skill and power. And now her child could do the same, and he had zero attentions of ever ending up on her bad side as he had Lily'.

Severus still had nightmares from facing Lily's furious wrath.

No, he'd earn her respect, convince her to turn to him first. To trust him. And he'd survive the cluster-fuck of a disaster they were racing headfirst into. He'd live, as would the Weasley's if her newfound friendship was any sign.

He'd have to warn Lucius and Draco against angering her, as well as his snakes. They wouldn't be happy, but once people began to notice, they'd be glad for his warning… and they'd owe him quite the favor.

Severus laughed again and pulled his eyes from the girl. He'd be on the winning side this time.