A/N: Originally posted on ao3 under the pen name youngjusticewriter. Part nine of the "The advantages of foreknowledge and the disadvantages." series. An au fic where Ariana did meet (and sort of steal) Harry before the third year. (Probably won't make much sense unless you've read previous works in the series.)
"Where is he?" Ariana knows that's she's being rude. She doesn't care. It also isn't like she's ever been one for words either. Rather it be saying them (screaming them until her throat is sore, there are tears in her eyes and on her face, and she feel dirty, more dirty than the ground that had scraped her knees raw and bloody and they hadn't been the only things bleeding) or just hearing them; it's why she prefers the quietness of her brother's bar over the Three Broomsticks where Ariana swore she was drowning in the (too much, too loud) chatter there.
"Excuse me," the woman sounds a mix of annoyed and shocked. Perhaps a bit scandalized as she takes in Ariana and her worn jeans and green (the same shade as Slytherin, Tom had bought it for her because there was already enough red, Gryffindor, in their house even though Tom didn't even live there anymore) sweater that's comfy (the fabric feels good against her skin, it doesn't make Ariana wince or wish to claw it off because it's wrong, just wrong) but not at all what one wore outside of their house.
The woman's color - an eye sore shade of grey - frays with annoyance and Ariana can't find it her to be apologetic. She doesn't remember her parents anymore. Just knows they're gone and maybe they're not coming back; she's not sure but she's not going to ask Aberforth, she hasn't in years because her poor brother's eyes and color looked so sad.
She remembers Tom (but he's called He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named because her baby brother had always been dramatic thing) and how she use to be wary of him (maybe if she hadn't, it wasn't his fault that he had the face of a pretty boy, maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way they did) until he had bought her LL.
She remembers Harrison even though it's been years since she last saw, a far longer time than Tom, him. She remembers how he use to bake them chocolate chip cookies and never told her off for not waiting until they cooled down. How he use to brush her hair every night. How he told her as many times as she needed that he was a freak too and had asked if Ariana thought him any different. She hadn't so why should she think of herself any different because she was a freak? (But that's the thing: knowing something and feeling it are too different things and Ariana knows Harrison had understood that and that was why he told it to her so many times.)
"Harrison," Ariana finally, impatiently, elaborated. "but you know him, your nephew, as Harry Potter."
The woman's thin lips tightened. Finally, Ariana's sort-of grand aunt, spoke. "I'm afraid you have the wrong house and your kind isn't welcomed here." Her tone voice was so nasty and perhaps that was what clipped the very thin thread that was Ariana's patience (and mercy).
"No," Ariana told the woman. Her voice while soft made it clear she was unyielding. "I'm not a witch like Lily was. I'm something far worse and there is a child that lives under the stairs that will become what I am if you don't give him to me." That's a lie. Harry had almost became what she and Credence were. But this foul woman (if she were even that) didn't need to know that. In fact, she'd be glad Ariana had control that one day her nephew would teach her. Otherwise Ariana would have exploded, let the clawing in her stomach take over, the moment the woman didn't deny her nephew was in a cupboard.
Ariana still wanted to scream at the woman though but she didn't (she hadn't in years). Did she know what she was doing to her nephew? How years later, lives later even that he would wake up from a nightmare and be afraid that he was strapped in a tiny place; that he couldn't get out and never would. It had been heart-wrenching when he woke up like that. It, Harrison's terror of being trapped and no one caring after he woke up from a nightmare, had been something Aberforth, Tom, and Ariana had come to dread.
And if Ariana was truthful with herself she was pretty sure the woman in front didn't care how shoving a baby in a cupboard when there were four bedrooms in the house. Ariana was many things; often too much, too little of said things along with often being unsure of herself. But she wasn't stupid - no Dumbledore ever was - despite never getting an education at Hogwarts like her brothers. She could count (the windows) thank you very much.
Finally Ariana could no longer stand the woman staring at her (eyes clearly suspicious and weary), "Are you going to move so I can get Harry?" She was being rude again but like before Ariana couldn't find it within her to care. Good girls would care, she can't help but think, and they wouldn't be rude. But Ariana wasn't a good girl despite what she'd been told. She hurt people even when she hadn't meant to. She wasn't a freak but she wasn't a good girl either.
The woman, clearly begrudgingly, moved so Ariana could come into her house and Ariana didn't wipe her shoes off the welcome sign before stepping into the eyes. Immediately her eyes went to the stairs only to look down at the cupboard. If Ariana's face softened since the first time since arriving on the Dursleys' porch the woman, wisely, didn't comment on it.
"Harry!" The woman screeched and immediately Ariana winced at the sound.
It was about a minute before a boy, a tiny boy with clothes that looked as though they might shallow him whole, with familiar looking taped glasses and vivid green eyes that till this day Ariana could recall stepped into the hallway. Merlin was he a tiny thing.
"Aunt Petunia?" The boy asked cautiously to the woman (Aunt Petunia apparently) all the while staring at Ariana in confusion and a mix of mistrust.
"Hello, Harry," Ariana managed to say despite how suddenly it was hard to speak because her stomach felt like a bubbling (to the point of overflowing) cauldron of nervousness.
"I'm your-" Ariana paused because, well, how was she going to explain time travel and magical guardians to a boy who didn't even know he was a wizard? "Family," she finally went with.
Harry blinked, looking quite like an owl, before pinching himself. The gesture was odd but Ariana was use to it because her Harry, or rather Harrison, had often done it after waking up from a nightmare to see if this was real.
The seven year old finally spoke to her. "You're my family?" It hurt that there was clear mistrust in his eyes but Ariana couldn't blame the boy since he lived with monsters that had the audacity to call themselves his family. After all, Ariana knew very well, there was only so much a person - a child - can be pushed until they break or break the world in return.
She gave him a small smile. "Yes." Later, when they left this wretched place, she'll tell him everything. For now though, that along with Ariana dropping to the ground so she could just hug and hold onto Harry, was enough. When she got home she would make him some chocolate chip cookies because as Ariana hugged him did she realize how tiny and thin he really was; how if she hugged him too tight she might break him.
In case you read this without reading the previous fics in this series I'll give a quick backstory. Harry (post DH but not epilogue compliant) time travels and bullshits his way into becoming Aberforth and Ariana's everything but officially magical guardian (I don't know if that's a thing in canon or just something in HP fanfic writers made up but I ended up going with it) with the knowledge Aberforth told him in the future (aka his time) so he can help Ariana because: "Because I could have been one too."
During his time with the Dumbledores he meets Grindelwald and adopts Tom. Fast forward to present time where Harry is just a kid and still an orphan (because you change somethings but not everything), in the series Harry will not be actually meeting Aberforth or Ariana until third year.
Despite that, I wanted to do another fic (an au fic) where Ariana goes and saves Harry from the Dursleys along with another fic in the series from her pov. And here we are.
On the why Harry pinched himself is because I'm pretty sure Harry mentions in the books on how he use to dream when he was younger that a family member would save him from the Dursleys. So basically seven year old Harry pinched himself to see if this was real or just another dream.