Vacilando [Spanish verb] - Traveling when the experience itself is more important than the actual destination.
"Rule 36: "For any given male character, there is a female version of that character, and visa versa."
Author Notes: The Title means, my goal isn't to finish the cannon timeline with just genderswapped characters. I'm going the full ride. This fic will be the cannon basis for the future fics (Like a femslash!Drarry, Genderswapped!Dramione/Hinny/Jily/... or male!Linny/Pansmione) That's not to say this fic won't be interesting, I want to develop the characters into their new gender as much as I can, and we'll see how that fits in. But if you want to read some of my fics based on this universe, it'd be good to read this first, that's all. You'd get a feel of their personalities and stuff.
Or you could just read this fic as a stand alone. (Sorry for the long explanation)
Halloween 1981
"Will, take Hattie and go! It's her! Go! Run! I'll hold her off!"
Jamie was scared. Scared out of her mind. But there was nothing she could do about it, she had to face her. Or she would die. Liam would die- Harriet would die. Her own husband, her only daughter.
No.
She wasn't going to let Voldemort kill them.
[She swore to murder Petra if she ever made it out alive.
How could she have betrayed them?]
But it wasn't too long before she was stuck dead.
Liam whispered to Harriet all he could, words of love and make sure his baby girl wouldn't get scared. He didn't think he would be able to survive this. But he'd do anything to make sure Harriet stayed alive.
He'd sacrifice himself, if that's what it took.
He heard a scream downstairs and his heart stopped.
"N-no….."
Shock drilled through him, fueling his terror even more. Tears welled up in his eyes. His Jamie was gone. Dead.
God, he berated himself, she'd find them if he started crying.
He needed to be strong.
To save Harriet.
"Not Hattie, not Hattie, please not Hattie!" He cried, fear pulsing through his veins.
"Stand aside you silly boy … stand aside now."
"Not Hattie, please no, take me, kill me instead —– "
"Not Hattie! Please … have mercy … have mercy… "
His last pleas were useless.
That night - a second life was taken.
Although Harriet Potter may have survived, she survived a orphan, a lost soul, alone in this terrifying world.
"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."
"How did you know it was me?" He asked.
In the place of the cat that had previously been there, a serious-looking gentleman stood there looking at Abigail Dumbledore in surprise. His hair was black and tightly gelled back and seemed medium length, and he had a short beard; he was wearing square glasses and a emerald cloak.
"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."
"Up! Get up! Now!"
Harriet woke up to sound of his uncle screeching, as he did every morning.
She'd been living at her uncle and aunt's house for as long as she could remember, and she hated every second of it. Well, that wasn't strictly true (the memory part that is, she completely hated the Evans), she could sometimes remember her actual parents, but whenever she stopped to think about it - a blinding green light seemed to come to mind, blocking out any other memories she might have of light haunted her all the time, in fact…..she'd just dreamed about it! ….And flying motorcycles, come to think of it.
She'd asked about her parents before, the answer was the same - "It was a car crash." Uncle Peter always answered, nothing more and nothing less. After all -
Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Evans.
His uncle was back outside the door.
"Are you up yet?" he demanded.
"Nearly," said Harriet.
"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Daphne's birthday."
Harriet groaned.
Daphne.
Her cousin, and her tormentor. To make things worse, it was her damn birthday! How could she have forgotten?
After getting dressed, Harriet got out of the cupboard under the stairs and went down the hall to the kitchen.
There was Daphne, a girl with long blonde hair and lots of fat, who enjoyed no exercise except the art of the fist to someone's face - usually Harriet, but Harriet was fast, and she escaped a lot. Which was considered surprising, since she didn't look it. Harriet was skinny and small, and looked even more so when she had to wear Daphne's old clothes, which always too big for her. She had a thin face, black unruly hair that reached her shoulders and a messy fringe. Harriet wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Daphne had shoved her to the ground or snapped them in front of Harriet's face.
She also had a very thin lighting-bolt scar that spread across her forehead in jagged lines and cut through a bit of her right eyebrow. She loved the look of her scar, but it had always seemed to make people stare at her. That's why Uncle Peter insisted on the fringe, and Harriet wasn't disagreeing with him about it (shockingly). She hated attention. But she couldn't blame people for looking, altogether with her light brown skin, crazy hair, and weirdly green eyes, she looked pretty different to her only living relatives.
Aunt Virginia entered the kitchen as Harriet was turning over the bacon.
"Comb your hair!" she barked, her eyes narrowing at the mere sight of her nephew.
Throughout her life, Aunt Virginia had tried to do many things to get her hair to lie flat, but it made no difference, her hair simply stayed that way - all over the place. They'd even tried growing it out, to see if the weight would keep her hair down a bit, but no - even that didn't work. In fact, it make it harder to handle.
Once, Uncle Peter, tired of Harriet coming back from the barbers looking as though she hadn't been at all and Aunt Virginia's complaining, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut her hair all off, except for her bangs, which Uncle Peter left "to hide that horrible scar." Daphne had laughed herself silly at the sight and teased endlessly Harriet, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where she was already laughed at for her old and tattered clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before Uncle Peter had sheared it off. She had been given a week in her cupboard for this, even though she had tried to explain that she couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.
Harriet put the plates of egg and bacon on the table. Aunt Virginia got Harriet to do most of the housework and cooking as she knew that Aunt Virginia hated that sort of things. Harriet's aunt was forever demanding that she make them more food, which Aunt Virginia and Daphne both ate to unhealthily amounts, and if her Aunt wasn't shouting at her or getting angry, she likely be insulting Harriet's mere existence. Uncle Peter didn't shout as much, went to work and spoiled Daphne all he could, leading Daphne to grow up with her mother's temper, whilst still being a daddy's girl.
It was sickening to watch.
In the living room, Daphne, meanwhile, was counting her presents. Her face fell. "Thirty-six," she said, looking up at her mother and father, a tantrum brewing on her face. "That's two less than last year!"
God, this was going to be a long day.
Harriet stared at the letter in shock. No one ever wrote to her. Who would? There was simply no reason to. Daphne had scared the rest of her class out of being her friend; the Evans were her only relatives…. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly as day:
Miss. H. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging Surrey
What Harriet didn't know, was that this was the beginning of the start of her life. The start she should've had, but had snachted away one Halloween, in 1981.
"Who's there?" Aunt Virginia shouted, half-angered and half-scared. "I warn you - I'm armed!"
There was a pause. Then -
SMASH!
The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.
A giant of a woman was standing in the doorway. She had a mane of long, shaggy, tangled hair and black beetle-like eyes. She strode over to the sofa where Daphne sat frozen with fear.
"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger. Daphne squeaked and ran to hide behind her father, who was holding onto his wife's shoulder, terrified.
"An' here's Hattie!" said the giant. Harriet looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile. She couldn't remember ever being called Hattie…..but she liked the way it sounded.
"Las' time I saw you, you was only a babe," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer' mom, but yeh've got yet dad's eyes."
Aunt Virginia made a funny high pitched noise.
"I demand you leave at one!" Her shrill voice shouted, her face slowly going red.
"Shut up Dursley, yeh great prune." The giant threw the gun straight out of her hands, and if Aunt Virginia wasn't shocked at the use of her maiden name, she was now at the stranger's actions.
"Anyway, Harriet. A very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here - I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste just the same."
A squashed box came from the her black overcoat, which Harriet took, hands trembling, and she opened it. A cake - for her?
"Who are you?" Harriet blushed, that wasn't the 'thank you' she had tried to say.
"Oh! I haven't introduced meself. Ruby, well, Rubeus, Hagrid! Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."
She looked proud at that, and made herself comfortable on the sofa there, grabbing bit and bobs from her coat to make a tea and some already cooked sausages. She even lit a fire with a pink umbrella- how was she even doing that?
Minutes passed as everyone seemed to just stare at the giant. As no one spoke, Harriet decided to speak up.
"I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."
The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Call me Hagrid," she said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course.
"Erm - no," said Harriet.
Hagrid dropped her sausage in shock.
"Harriet - yeh a witch."
"I'm a what?" she gasped, not knowing whether to feel insulted or not.
"A witch, o' course," said Hagrid, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."
Harriet stretched out her hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Miss. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. Questions buzzed in her mind as she read more and more of the letter. She didn't even know what to ask first.
"We swore when we took her in we'd put a stop to that nonsense," said Aunt Virginia, "swore we'd stamp it out of her!"
"You knew?" Harriet said. "You knew I'm a - a witch?"
"Knew!" roared Uncle Peter suddenly. "How could we not? Especially being was my blasted brother was! He got his letter - one just like that - He disappeared all year, only back at summer to practice all that- that rubbish! I saw him for what he truly was - A FREAK! But for my mother and father - ohh no, they were proud." he spat. "William this, William that, they were proud to have a wizard in the family!"
He stopped, face poisoned with hate and resentment, seemingly that had been built up for years. Drawing a deep breath, he continued -
"Then he met that Potter girl at school, they got married and had you. I knew you'd be the same...abnormal and freaky. Then he had the decency to get himself blown up! And we - we got landed with you." He finished venomously.
Harriet went very still.
"Blown up?" She whispered, her face draining of colour.
"Hogwarts?" Mister Malkin asked "Got the lot here - another young lady being fitted up just now, in fact."
Towards the back of the store was a girl with a pale, pointed face, and long silky, platinum blonde hair that was tied up in a slick ponytail. She was standing as a witch pinned some black robes on her. Soon, Mister Malkin was doing the same to her.
"Hello," greeted the girl, "Hogwarts too?"
"Yes," Harriet answered shortly, as she didn't know what to else to say.
"My mother's buying me my books, and my father's next door getting me my wand." said the girl. She had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'll dragged them to get me a racing broom. It's so unfair that first years aren't allowed them. It doesn't matter, anyhow. I'll just bully mother into getting me one, and I'll smuggle it in someway."
The girl strongly reminded Harriet of Daphne.
"Know what house you'll get into?" The girl went on.
"No," Harriet said.
"Hm, I mean, no one really knows until you get there, really. But I know I'll be in Slytherin, all my family has. Imagine being a Hufflepuff! I'd leave straight away, wouldn't you?" She laughed. Harriet disliked how casually mean she was being, even if she had no clue what Slytherin or Hufflepuff was. It was almost as if she didn't even realise she was being rude.
"I say - look at that woman!"
Harriet looked at her ticket once more. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. It couldn't be right. She'd asked a guard, who told her there wasn't one. She'd asked about Hogwarts, a train leaving at eleven o'clock. The guard denied it. Nothing.
She gave the clock a quick glance, 10.50am, she didn't have long left…..
At that moment a group of people passed just behind her and she caught a few words of what they were saying.
"- packed with Muggles, of course -"
Harriet spun around. The speaker was a short, plump man who was talking to four girls who all had flaming red hair, and a trunk (like hers) and they had an owl! She quickly pushed her cart so that she might catch more on what they were saying.
""Now, what's the platform number?" said the girls' father.
"Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small boy, also red-headed, who was stood close to his father, "Dad, can't I go... "
"You're not old enough, son. Alright Penelope, you go first."
The oldest-looking girl marched towards platform nine and ten. Harriet watched closely as she seemed to disappear between the barrier. All these people around - none of them were even looking in their direction! By the time the tourists swarmed past, the girl had vanished.
"Fred, you next." the plump man said. Another girl, who was stood next to a girl who looked utterly identical to her, snapped her attention to her father. They both had really short, messy, flaming red hair; Harriet liked the look of it.
"I'm not Fred, I'm Georgie!" she said. "Honestly, you call yourself our father? Can't you tell I'm Georgie?"
"Sorry Georgie,"
"Only joking, I am Fred!" she called out as she rushed into the barrier - and then - she were gone! But how had she done it?
Her twin sister took a run up towards it too, and then she was almost there - and then, suddenly, she wasn't anywhere.
Damn it. Harriet would have to ask.
"Excuse me, sir." she said to the plump man,
"Hello, first time at Hogwarts? Ronnie's new too." He pointed at his youngest daughter, the last left. She was tall, thin, gangling, with freckles everywhere, big hands and feet, and a long nose. Ronnie had quite long hair that she tucked behind her ear as she smiled nervously at Harriet.
"Yes, but er, the thing is- I don't, er, know how to -"
""How to get onto the platform?" he said kindly, and Harriet nodded.
"Not to worry," he said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ronnie."
"Er - okay," said Harriet.
Running into the barrier, she couldn't help but think about how solid it looked, there was no way she'd make it - she closed her eyes, ready for the crash -
It never came….she opened her eyes. In its place was a scarlet steam engine named:
Hogwarts Express