Author's Note
Summary/Intro:
Much occupies the mind of Antonia Potter as she bears her sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When frustration accompanies excessive stress, she fears her mind will wander to elusive places, and with the bewildering and disgusting discovery of her highly loathed schoolyard enemy having only the most disconcerting things to assault her with, her own messy sanity and the war to handle, a part of her, at times, craves diminished senses.
Fem!Harry
Main Pairing: Antonia/Draco - in their ever-budding alliances
Angst/Drama/Romance/Adventure
*Based off of the events in The Half-Blood Prince onto eventual Deathly Hallows.
Disclaimer: I do not own any Harry Potter characters, settings, traits, components, et cetera. All rights reserved to the author J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros.
*Rated M for language, adult situations, violence and sexual content.
This chapter has been modified as of 3/29/15. No drastic changes have been made.
Chapter One
Antonia
She'd always study the few photos she did have of her mother.
It had helped her cope with her less than satisfactory life and the harsh living conditions in the Dursley household. From infancy, she'd been neglected by her Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, as well as having received some rather unfair treatment from her husky and avaricious cousin, Dudley.
By eight years of age, Antonia Rosemary Potter had already understood that life may not be what it is for other children as it was for her. Of course, along with the loss of both of her parents at a very early age, she'd never be gifted with much more than hand-me-down socks and perhaps a half-used coloring book that had belonged to Dudley prior would be given to her on her birthdays and on the holidays, thereby suggesting her burden on them. At least this had taught her not to be greedy with things in life, and a well-behaved child she was for this.
In her own compact cupboard below the stairs she'd enjoy spending her time alone with the five or six pictures she had of her late parents, Lily and James Potter. She wasn't exactly certain of how they died, for she'd been given numerous stories over the years. She recalled first asking her aunt about it when she was around four years old, and had been informed that they had been killed in a car accident while she was home with the babysitter. After that, her Uncle Vernon had let slip that they'd passed when a bout of chronic measles had hit them simultaneously. Then just a year earlier, they had both agreed on their 'victimization' of a terrorist attack in a local mall they were at while little Antonia was at the daycare center a ways away from the scene.
After these odd and likely false accounts she'd been told, she decided to just not mention it again. Better a secret than a ridiculous and insulting fib, she figured. She had always been a smart girl with her high grades in all of her classes, the checks being far higher than her cousin's anyway, but that didn't mean she would be treated better at home. No, she was ignored greatly in her seven years at Number 4 Privet Drive. She could only guess that it was because she was not their child, and that seemed to make sense in a way. She grew accustomed to her rare servings of dessert and the small portions of whatever they were having for breakfast, lunch or dinner. She had become too thin because of this, though she personally valued her trim figure over the borderline obesity her cousin was facing. As for clothing, she had gotten a box full of her mother's old dresses that she wore at her age, and they had actually fit quite well, and she also had half a closet full of discounted dresses, trousers and shirts from the local market, while Dudley was allowed crème de la crème brands and custom-made tops and coats.
She was alone for the most part at her school, just as she was at home. The few friends she did make were not allowed to come home with her, as restricted by the stern and bulky Uncle Vernon, and she wasn't given the transportation on the weekends to venture out to their homes, simply because neither of her guardians 'had the time' to waste driving her to and fro.
Nonetheless, she was getting along okay. She was thankful for her health, the nutrition she did receive, and the education. Yet, she couldn't help but yearn for the caring of her lost parents. She felt that it wasn't fair that she had been orphaned, deprived of the opportunity to feel her mother's love and her father's protectiveness. She knew nothing of either of them, for her Aunt Petunia would never speak much of them, not even of her mother, who was her aunt's younger sister.
On one particular Saturday, she was sketching, referencing one of the photos she had of her mom and dad together with their arms linked around one another and smiling valiantly at the camera, dressed in fall clothing while outside surrounded by crisp and colorful leaves. Antonia had been granted the same locks, eyes and perfect vision as her mother; the vibrant auburn color, long, silky and touched with light waves, and her eyes were large, almond shaped and a hauntingly beautiful green. She had her olive skin and perfectly shaped nose and lips. Judging the pictures, she didn't think she had any of her father's physical characteristics, so she guessed that she may have had his personality.
She had this odd scar on the right side of her forehead, just below her hairline. She saw it as a lightning bolt, personally, and thought it to be rather neat looking and unique, albeit was oblivious to how she got it. She had always kept her hair long so she could cover it up with fragments of her locks while out in public, mainly at the request of her aunt, however, for she didn't want her "reeling in negative attention" from society.
She had just finished drawing her mother on the left side of her notebook paper when she heard someone stop at her doorway. Holding an orange crayon firmly in her left hand she glanced up at her tall and slender aunt with her arms crossed and her focus on the sheet her niece was drawing on.
"Have you completed your chores?" she asked with a nearly vitriolic bite. Her sharp tone had almost sent a chill down her spine.
"Y-yes, Aunt Petunia. I have."
She nodded carelessly in turn, seemingly to scowl at the imitation of her deceased sister and her husband. Turning away to leave her be, Antonia heard her mutter under her breath, "Too perfect, she was."
Her door was closed abruptly, leaving her to herself again, just the way she preferred to be. The only kindness Aunt Petunia had showed her niece was when she'd allow her a half hour of the telly while Uncle Vernon was at work. That beside, she ruled her sister's daughter's life with a cold and corrupt finesse.
All her life so far she'd been experiencing slight yet almost overlookable personal phenomenon. From a young age she felt that she could move small objects just by concentrating on them with enough profusion, and sometimes she could even swear that she had the capability to make certain items disappear and reappear again at her mental command. She had some interesting verification for this on Dudley's eleventh birthday.
The Dursleys and their nuisance of a niece had gone to the zoo at the request of the spoilt, overweight and young majesty. A short time after the young girl had just finished her sour lemon popsicle, she spotted her cousin taunting an inhabited snake. Being an admirer of all animals, this bothered the daylights out of her.
"Leave him alone, Dudley!" she snapped at him once just feet away from the arrogant boy. He ignored her attempted assertive demand and continued to harass the large python while it was imprisoned behind a thick wall of glass. She could merely glare at him while he was leant against the transparent shield, laughing like a drunk at the poor captive that belonged out in the wild.
Antonia angrily fantasized the glass suddenly disappearing, allowing her mean cousin a plummet straight into the snake's pit—and so it happened. The next thing she knew, the large boy was stumbling over the low ledge, arms flailing, to collapse a few feet below into the murky puddle, just a short distance away from the long reptile. Unnerving pubescent screams followed that startled the young redhead enough to pull her out of her trance-like state. She imagined it, and it happened. She stared at her hands in a stupefied manner as her aunt and uncle rushed over in a panic to get their son out of the attraction.
In the meantime, the large cold-blooded creature slid out of the tank, then added to the young girl's bafflement by hissing an audible "Tttthhhanks". Despite the peculiarity of it all, she couldn't help but smile at him as he slithered out into freedom.
The ride home was not pleasant. While the aunt was in the back consoling her cold and drenched son in a fresh towel that was left in the trunk from their beach trip earlier that year, which of course was unattended by Antonia, her uncle was relentlessly berating her that what had happened was her fault, while she meekly argued that it "just happened" and she had nothing to do with it. That's what she wanted to believe anyway, but was that really true?
She'd be finding out for sure soon enough when her own eleventh birthday rolled around. Before that day on July 31st however, she had been continuously receiving personal letters in the mail. They were all addressed to her, but she was not allowed to see any of them. They were always burned in the fireplace or shredded to pieces.
One Sunday, when the entire home was cluttered with hoards of letters addressed to Miss Antonia Rosemary Potter of 4 Privet Drive, compliments to the parade of owls outside of their house, she had actually come close to ripping one open for herself until she was roughly taken into her large uncle's arms and lost the envelope due to his forceful grasp of it out of her feeble right hand.
Then once her birthday came along, she was lying on the dusty hardwood floor of an abandoned hut out on a small chunk of land surrounded by seawater, when she heard voluminous footsteps approaching the door while wishing herself a happy birthday in the dust of the floorboards. Suddenly, the door was thrown open by a gigantic man who had the appeal of your average lumberjack, with his burly gut and the vast amount of black facial hair that rested at his chest. He stomped in just as her guardians had rushed down the old stairs with a loaded rifle ready.
Antonia didn't feel as frightened as she probably should have been when the colossal man came her way after scoffing hard at her uncle before bending the metal of the rifle upwards to allow Vernon to shoot a portion of the roof off. A massive hand was presented before the small girl along with the introduction of the sasquatch who called himself Rubeus Hagrid, Hogwarts' gamekeeper and the Keeper of the keys.
Antonia watched in amazement as the heap of a person retorted at her uncle for multiple reasons, one being for not informing her that she was a 'witch', that they had refrained from handing her her invitation to the prestigious school of witchcraft and wizardry, and those awful lies about how her parents truly lost their lives.
It was not until after this unusual man had told young Antonia that she was actually a witch, then allowing her to take that in, then leaving behind her family after much debate over her going to a school for "magic tricks and tomfoolery", that Antonia had discovered that Lily and James Potter had been murdered by a very powerful dark wizard named Voldemort. She'd been warned not to call him by his real name but rather He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named instead.
She had been spared from death thanks to her mother's protective spell cast over her before she had been killed. In result, this dark wizard had left a scar to mark his future vengeance. Though her guide had not told her that last part, for she was far too young and innocent to receive such forbidding news.
Though dumbstruck as she was by all of this, she could go along with it quite well, likely due to her age. It was only rational that an eleven year old had enough of an imagination left to believe in such things as magic when the evidence is clearly displayed, as she got to see once traveling through Diagon Alley. All the levitation and sights that could imply legitimate witchcraft was verifiable enough for her young mind.
And so she met Mr. Ollivander, who after giving a show of how she looked just like her mother, then assisted her in depicting what type of wand she'd be possessing. After going through an array of them, and nearly bringing down the entirety of the shop in the process, she was given a willow and phoenix feather wand, ten and ⅓ inches in length, similar to the one prescribed to her mother, in fact.
"Yer gonna need a pet tuh bring wit ya to Hogwarts, ya know," chimed the huge man beside her as they stopped by multiple pet shops.
"You are allowed to bring pets?" she asked quizzically.
"Yup, yer allowed a cat, toad or an owl, Anton-ya. Let's 'ave a look inside, shall we?"
Excitedly, she led the way into a shop filled with owls called Eeylops Owl Emporium. Once inside, she almost immediately fell for a pure white owl with bold yellow eyes. She lifted the cage with the owl inside and looked pleadingly at Hagrid. He returned a large grin her way and paid for the elegant bird before heading out to the robing shop. She decided that she'd call her new animal, who was a female as she'd discovered, Cher, after one of her favorite muggle singers.
The remainder of that day was spent meeting astounded people whom knew her already, enjoying ice cream which she'd had few times in her life, trying on school robes and meeting a rather haughty blond boy who she silently hoped she wouldn't meet again anytime soon. Then she would face a year like no other.
Her first year at a school she'd have never dreamed even existed taught her not only of mystical potions and charms, but also that she really could not trust everyone she met. The world was not such a safe place, and she did not realize this while residing full-time with the Dursleys. In fact, she believed that there was no place or people in the world worse than these people. Antonia had to learn the difficult way just how contrary her original perception was.
She was also struck by the harsh reality of having a duty. She was not the ordinary girl with futile goals that she thought she was. She was something powerful. A witch, one designated to somehow rid this whimsical world of this nefarious warlock. Though at just eleven, she couldn't quite grasp the full concept of what she was born to do.
She was sorted into the House of Gryffindor, although the choice hadn't been the Hat's first. After meeting a ginger-haired boy named Ronald Weasley on the train, she was informed of Slytherin House's reputation of bred sinners. The Hat had wished to send her to the table to the far end of her right, but she protested, however, not for the reason of Ron's statement.
That evening, she had met to rude blond boy who'd been verbal on his desire to be her friend. His words were spiced with bigotry, equaling a major turn-off on the witches part, so she dismissed him, in spite of meaning to obtain no enemies whilst here in this place where she would finally start anew. This boy had not dismissed her, however. He spat words of disdain at her back until he was called forth to be sorted into Slytherin House.
"Am I sensing some Slytherin qualities here?" the Hat did muse. "You are an ambitious little one, but perhaps not so cunning...Still, I seek great success of you in this particular House..."
Antonia contemplated this momentarily. Honestly, she didn't know enough about any of the Houses to really wish to be in a specific one nor judge any of them. Sure, this Draco Malfoy had been the first to back-up Ron's theory on the Snakes not being such nice people, but she herself was kind and had never even hurt a fly or spider...Though in her consideration, she happened to catch that rude blond boy glaring at her from his seat at his table. A taunting smirk was playing along his lips and there was what appeared to be a forced open space between him and one of his heavyset cronies. She reckoned that he purposefully made way for her possible approach. Suddenly the prospect of being in the same House as him made her feel overwhelmingly ill.
"Um...I don't think-"
"Not Slytherin, eh? I must admit your top reason is adorable enough...but don't you worry. I'll respect your privacy. Let's see where else I seek you fit...mm, you are a tricky one, Potter. Your loyal traits make you suitable for Hufflepuff, though your creativeness and intellect better line you up for Ravenclaw...and your sense of courage, subtle as it might be now, is bound to flourish in time...yes, it seems we've narrowed it down to two Houses now. Just a tick here...I'm analyzing...beautiful mind, I must say...such complexity and long-implemented geniality...Much akin to a young girl I sorted two decades ago."
The apples of her cheeks reddened.
"...You've somewhat of a tie here, young lady, but I ultimately seek you in...GRYFFINDOR!"
Just about everyone broke into wild applause, except for most of Slytherin. She beamed in satisfaction as she strode over to her designated table. Gryffindor...she didn't quite know wholesomely if it was where she belonged, but it felt right enough. In the next nine months she'd befriended fellow Griffins, Ron, a brilliant muggle-born named Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom, a forgetful pureblood. She'd developed a troublesome relationship with Draco. No matter her efforts to keep his distance, he clung to her like bloodstains to satin. Her trio of pals could bark off him and his bodyguards, Crabbe and Goyle, but only for so long. Luckily, her aunt, uncle and cousin had implanted a temperament of patience and steady pardoning in her, but his lingering had been a challenge to cope with in its refusal to die.
At the end of her first year she'd defeated You-Know-Who who'd been hiding on the back of Professor Quirrell's head, concealed by turban. Her victory laid in her touch of love, and essentially, that in itself.
She'd slayed the Basilisk of the Chamber of Secrets at her second year's end and stabbed Tom Marvolo Riddle's diary to an irreparable state, thereby postponing its owner's intentions for the time being.
She'd felt the blissful authentic love of family meeting her godfather, Sirius Black six weeks prior to her fourteenth birthday.
She'd witnessed the murder of a seventeen-year-old in a cemetery her fourth year.
She'd landed Lucius Malfoy in Azkaban her fifth year. She'd also spiraled into a catastrophic sadness at the loss of her godfather.
At sixteen, she could only anticipate her upcoming sixth year. The Dark Lord was back and ready to activate some terrible anarchy, and it was up to this chosen girl to bring him down.
It was mid-August, and she was seated in this muggle café with that morning's Daily Prophet, after leaving the Dursley houseld for the first time in weeks, Sirus' death having taken that violent a toll on her. She'd read about how she was fast becoming a controversial figure in the Wizarding world, then going on to read: FALLEN FROM GRACE: MALFOY'S WIFE AND SON LEAVE THE TRIAL.
Pixies fluttered crazily in her belly. She grimaced, nauseated at the prospect of what wrath her complicated nemesis would wreak on her upon returning to school. She'd gotten Father arrested after all. Dismally, Antonia bore in mind his evident sexual feelings for her. Yet, in this case, she was better chanced a roughening up than a kiss, but come September the first, she'd keep her mates near.
She was confronted by a cute tan fellow in his late teens who initiated some flirty compliments. Antonia was unable to return a statement, for her eyes landed on a white-bearded wizard donning turquoise cloaks and crescent spectacles outside the shop through the pristine glass. Being the prioritized girl she was, she stood from her seat in the middle of the café and promptly made her way out the doors, ignoring the hot boy's "See ya later?"
A lionhearted smile was presented for her favorite elderly wizard. "Professor." Arms wrapped around the Head of Hogwarts and the gesture was returned.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, Antonia, dear," he teased.
"Interrupt? Oh no, sir, you weren't-"
"Take my arm."
She gazed at him, slightly confused at his slight abruptness.
"Do as I say."
A/N: And so her journey begins. Thank you for checking this out. Keep in mind that future chaps will include occurrences and situations similar to those in which Harry face, but with diverse dialogue and gesticulations from Antonia. It will include details from various works of the series, as well as her own experiences when faced with friends, enemies, situations, and especially Lord Voldemort. Feedback is praised. Review, for I'd like to know anyone's opinions so far :)
-JLM