I've been thinking a lot over the last few months about what to do with this story. Finally, I decided...what the hell, might as well post it, since I'm doing the whole fanfic thing now.

Background. In 2005 to 2006, I played in a Harry Potter LARP with a bunch of friends. The setting was an alternate past for the books - the characters were at Hogwarts in 1914. They made some other changes to the setting, too - things like creating a field of basically steam punk magic called Automata - and we all played in the sandbox and had a blast.

I was having a lot of fun, and decided that for kicks and giggles, I'd write the story up. I posted the segments on Livejournal as I finished them, back when I still used Livejournal (there's some other writing on mine, starting from late 2004, I think, same username as here, if you're really bored some day...I haven't updated since early 2012, for Reasons). I started writing it in 2005, got a lot done, but then stalled and didn't finish until 2007. When I finished the manuscript, I was shocked to discover it was 96,000 words. As such, it's the second novel I ever wrote. (The first was original fiction, finished a month before I finished this story...and that will never, ever see the light of day...)

I make no claims to high art with this story, nor to a thoroughly thought through world. The rethinking of the HP setting that was done isn't even mine, it belongs to the friends who helped run the game. Writing something amazing was never the point. The point was that my friends and I had a load of fun playing this game and I wanted to preserve the memories, so I wrote them down.

I reread it not that long ago after not thinking about it for five or six years and...it's not bad. I have no idea how it will communicate to someone who wasn't there. I'm planning to edit it minimally as I go, and I'll likely remove some of the side plots that I included because they happened in the game but that aren't actually relevant to the main plot.

The PoV character was my character, and all the other characters mentioned were either PCs or NPCs. If memory serves, the only canon character in the story is Phineas Nigellus Black.

Read if you want, or not. This is mostly a personal project, to have it backed up somewhere, and because I don't see the point in having writing it and then keeping it to myself.

There's no smut, though there is a pretty good dose of romantic cuteness. And if you're reading my current stuff, I dunno, maybe it's an interesting contrast - certainly, I find it weird and kinda cool to see how far my writing as come in the past decade.

Note that I've set the publication date to the month when I finished the story - November, 2007.

Anyway - if you're reading this, enjoy. :)


As I look back now on the years I spent at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it seems strange to think that we were only children. The things that happened, the things we did – I've done nothing since that equal in all the years that have passed since my graduation. Yet, still, I know that there are others that did far more, far different things than I, for I was content to do nothing for the first two years of my time at the school, inaction I regret to this day. Thus, it was not until my third year as a student at Hogwarts, not long after my 16th birthday, that I started to be active in the momentous events that were taking place in the world around us.

I had spent my first two years at school deeply engaged in studying, seeking to draw as little attention to myself as possible, concentrating on my grades. I had to do my best, to prove to my parents that I had been put in the right house, that Ravenclaw was the place for me despite their hopes that I be placed in Slytherin. When I was first sorted, I feared I would be disowned, for the family was in general agreement that it was a terrible blow to the our reputation that I not be placed in the ranks of the great and noble house of Slytherin. They used to say that I was the first in my family not of the snake, though I later learned that such was not the case, they simply had chosen not to acknowledge family members who had been put in any other house. I was determined not to join the ranks of forgotten Princes. I was determined to earn the respect of my family, to be the daughter that they would have wished me to be, even if I wasn't a Slytherin.

There was only a single complication, a single stumbling block in the way of my seclusion. I generally preferred to keep to myself, it's true, but when I was 14, my parents summoned me, their faces more serious than I had ever seen them before.

"Delia, we have some bad news for you," my mother had said. I was instantly worried, thinking of all the horrible things that might have happened. Had someone passed away? My brother, Alasdair, was a senior at Hogwarts, and I started imagining all the horrible things that might have happened to him. Maybe he wandered into the forest, maybe he got caught by the giant squid, maybe…maybe…my imagination produced all sorts of horrors, focused on my brother for no reason I could have identified, and in the few moments before my parents continued I had thoroughly convinced myself that my brother had been eaten by a manticore.

"Delia…" my parents exchanged a glance, each looking terribly uncomfortable, "…we don't know how to tell you this, but, well, you'll have to use your brothers hand-me-down robes from when he was younger."

I just stared at them, not understanding what they were telling me. "Alasdair's alright, isn't he?" I asked, terribly worried about thestrals, chimeras, and giant squid.

My parents both looked startled. "Yes, of course, Alasdair's fine. However, we…we can't…maintain you...at Hogwarts as you might wish. Fortunately, we've kept all of your brother's old school things." My father looked stern. "You'd better take all of the same classes he did!"

Even then, I still didn't really realize what they meant. Slowly, I tried to work through my confused thoughts out loud. "So…what you mean is that if I don't take the same classes as Alasdair, I won't have school books?"

My mother nodded solemnly, my father looked away as if he was ashamed. "Yes, Delia."

"But…but…Alasdair focused in transfiguration! I hate transfiguration! I want to focus in potions…" I whined, pouting in an exaggerated fashion.

Whining was exactly the wrong thing to do, though. All sense of sympathy from my parents faded, and my father snapped at me. "Yes, well, we've had to make sacrifices, too. You're not the only one. Your brother has had to manage on the Quidditch team using a broom that is nearly five years old, while all of the other students have new brooms. Your mother," my mother looked away, her eyes full of tears, "had to wear the same robes to the last three parties thrown by the Malfoy's. And I myself have had to stop going to the club entirely, lest the others realize my sad situation. Everyone else in this family is doing their best, and we expect the same from you, young lady!"

I nodded, trying to look demure, submissive, but already I was forming a plan. My parents could not object if I raised the money to buy my books on my own. I have always excelled at potions, a talent neglected by my family members since my great-grandmother had died. She left behind an impressively stocked cabinet filled with potion ingredients, both common and rare. No one would notice if I took some with me to school, no one would notice if I began to do some brewing that was not, strictly speaking, on the curriculum. There must be demand certain types of potions amongst the students at the school. All I had to do was work hard to meet that demand and not waste what ingredients I had. Thus, I could make some knuts and sickles on the side with which I could acquire what I needed to pursue my studies as I saw fit, without reference to Alasdair's preferences. Politely, properly obedient, I agreed to their restrictions, let them pack my bags with used books and robes worked over with spells to make them appear new again, and planned out what potions I could use to make my own fortune now that my parents would not –could not - allow me access to theirs.

Thus, I found myself in a peculiar intermediate position as the years at Hogwarts passed slowly. On the one hand, I am and always have been something of a private person, not given to excessive interest in social interactions and not, in my opinion, terribly good with people. On the other hand, I discovered something of a taste for business, and I enjoyed the small amount of luxury that earning money afforded me. The fact that the luxuries so acquired were such that my parents should by all rights have been able to provide me with anyway did not cheapen my sense of accomplishment. Indeed, at the time it never occurred to me. I was pleased with the benefits of having money, I was glad that I could buy my school things, my books, my ingredients. My parents never asked where I got the money, and I never told them. I imagine they still don't know.

The biggest surprise for me, given the generally closeted nature of my first two years at Hogwarts, was the inclusion of a Prefects badge in the list of materials I needed for my third year of school. At first, I thought that there must be some mistake, for surely there were more qualified candidate. Over the next few days, as I considered through the question of "why me," I realized a few things. First, I could think of only one or two other girls in the third, fourth and fifth years of study who might be qualified. Most of the Ravenclaws were even more studious then myself, more quiet and introverted and generally secluded. My business dealings had given me the appearance of interest in something beyond books. Second, though I couldn't exactly pin down what effect it would have, there was the muggle "war to end all wars" to consider. That summer, many pure bloods, from my family and from others, still believed it was a war only of concern to the muggles – how foolish we were – but it had a profound impact on people all over Europe, so I thought perhaps it might have affected some of my more qualified classmates, and hence might explain my selection. Third, and I decided most likely, was the favor I had with the head master. Though I know that, to this day, most look at me with stunned amazement when I say this, I have always had a very high opinion of Phineas Nigellus. He was my mentor, and a better man than he is given credit for. No matter what can be said about him in the capacity of head master of Hogwarts, he was an unmatched potion maker, and I credit him with a great deal of the success I have had throughout my life. My admiration of him translated into a tendency to follow him around, seek his advice, and generally pursue his input on matters related to potions, and I flatter myself to think that he was impressed with my abilities. Hence, I supposed that my promotion to the rank of Prefect was a credit to his influence.

However, I am digressing quite badly, I apologize. It's amazing to me how clearly the details of events that are so long passed return to me so vividly. It's hard not to pursue these tangents that seize my fancy, for they allow me if only for a few moments longer to immerse myself in the lost days of my youth.

The summer before my third year passed quickly. My parents were at first enthusiastically pleased with my new badge and congratulated me effusively. However, as the days passed, their praise became less and less complimentary, until, in the end, the message was simple. "Congratulations on being made a prefect, darling, but it would mean so much more if you were a Slytherin." This didn't surprise in particular, for they had had precisely the same reaction when I was named keeper of the Quidditch team. "Excellent, really," they'd say, "a great achievement, but..." I wouldn't have been bothered by this but for the fact that it represented such a sad transformation. They wanted to be proud of me, I know that they did, and they were proud of me until they remembered that I was not in Slytherin. The moment that they recalled the eagle on my badge their pride faded into an emotion I always feared to name shame. I used to find myself wondering if they ever told their friends about me, or if they pretended I didn't exist. I was terrified that it was the later. I've never admitted that before. It's amusing, in retrospect, to think that the prospect worried me so.

I approached the train station on the first day of classes with mixed feelings. I was nervous about my new role of authority and I anticipated with excitement the first day of classes, when I would begin advanced potions a year before I was technically eligible to do so. It would be reasonable to suppose that I wanted to see my friends, but that would be untrue, for, sadly, I had few friends. I was acquainted with the other members of the Quidditch team, but the majority of last year's team had graduated; I knew the other people in my year, but none well; and my only consistent business associates were the Lunari twins, two mischievous Gryffindor's who I made an effort to avoid public contact with. It was a rather sad situation, but fortunately my new position as Prefect would do much to remedy it over the following year. Still, as I kissed my mother good bye and took my trunk from my father, contents rattling, I couldn't help but wonder what the year ahead held in store. Would I be a good prefect? Would I learn many interesting things? Would the Quidditch team do well? Would I finally be forced into studying Automata? What would the new students at the school be like? Only a child could have contained so many anxieties within her head without suffering some form of breakdown – not that I thought of myself as a child then.

My responsibilities as Prefect began as soon as I boarded the train. While the other students spent their journeys eating treats from the food cart and catching up with friends, I spent mine in the front cabin along with the other new prefects and the new head boy and head girl, learning about the responsibilities and authorities that had been granted to each of us. It was daunting. We were expected to be conversant with school rules and to make sure that the students in our houses – and in other houses, if such a situation arose - were following these rules (and there were many, many rules!), to perform service duties such as helping with chores and aiding professors with demonstrations and the like, and more, so much more, that had to be done, all in addition to maintaining our studies and any other extracurricular activities that we were involved in.

Once they finished explaining everything to us, they set us lose on an unsuspecting student body. All the school rules – many of which I'd never heard before – swirled around in my head as I patrolled the corridor of the train cars seeking students doing misdeeds. To this day I can't begin to guess what I would have done if I had actually found someone misbehaving. While I had always followed the rules assiduously (always excepting my independent business) I wasn't the sort to interfere with what anyone else was doing. It was none of my concern if the Lunaris or anyone else wished to engage in mischief. Fortunately, I was spared this harrowing conflict, and we arrived at the school without anything untoward happening.