Disclaimer: J K Rowling owns the "Harry Potter" Franchise. I just own my plotline and my OCs.
A/N: I know that this is not an update for Pup and Fawn but I'm working on that. This is a AU work, a series of chapters in the life of Harry Potter and Ally Black had their parents lived or not been thrown in Azkaban.
Please read and review.
Year: Summer after OWL year
Location: Potter Manor
Sloth:
Ally Black groaned as she cooked the food for breakfast, she knew that this was not a part of her job description as a houseguest to the Potter family. In fact, she hadn't been invited, but what was a girl to do when their younger brother, sister and parents had been invited explicitly, stay at home and hope not to starve to death?
Her parents tended to forget about her existence a lot, in fact they seemed to forget that their oldest born was a girl, so Ally had spent her childhood running around in boyish clothes, following boyish pursuits with her god-brother, Harry Potter.
Harry had to be the laziest boy she had ever met, during school he was clever but never did his work usually resulting in one of two things, a detention or Ally being forced to do his work for him. She had to admit that he was lazy as hell, and got away with everything that he did, probably a by-product of his fame in their world.
"Hey, Ally," a voice said from behind her, the redhead spun to see her younger brother Orion perched on a stool. His black hair was unkempt and his grey eyes were tired but sparkling with mischief. All in all Ally had to admit that her brother was a cute six year-old.
"Morning, Orion, everyone else still asleep," Ally asked her younger brother as she handed him over a plate with a full English breakfast on it.
"Yeah," Orion responded through a mouthful of bacon, Ally groaned and gave him a look which made him look at her apologetically for forgetting the manners she had instilled in him.
"Great, just my luck," Ally rolled her eyes, she had a life but she couldn't do anything on her own yet, she had only just had her 16th birthday the day before, which everyone had forgotten barring Harry because it was the same day as his.
Ally really wanted to go for her daily morning run but when she was home she had to be responsible for her younger siblings because there was no telling what Sam and Orion could get themselves into.
Sam was nine and had to be the opposite of Ally, she was loud, brash, and hyper, lacked elegance and for the most part was the Daddy's Little Girl. Sam had inherited their mother's looks, she had blonde ringlets which framed her face, she had rosy cheeks and beautiful blue eyes, she was in short beautiful, the traditional definition of it. Sam like their brother had inherited the pranking nature of their father whilst Ally stayed out of trouble as much as possible.
"Ally, go for your run," Orion told his younger sister.
"Nice try, you're coming with me, I'm training at the Quidditch pitch so you can sit on the bleachers and plan a prank or something on Harry," Ally told him as she left the breakfast in the self-warming plates and pulled her brother out after her.
When they got to the pitch Orion suddenly realised that his sister never encouraged his and Sam's pranking, yet here she was asking him to prank their god-brother.
"Ally, why do you want me to prank Harry," Orion asked his oldest sister.
Ally kissed him on the cheek before running off. As she ran Ally got lost in her own thoughts, somehow she found herself thinking of the reason why she would let her siblings prank Harry.
Flashback:
Ally ran back to the Gryffindor common room, it was the last week of term before the summer, they had just sat their OWLs and Ally was sure that she had done well. Ally would be the first to admit that she was probably one of the most intelligent in her year, but she hid it.
Recently she had been forced to admit that she was better than most people expected her to be, this had caused a terrific backlash that she had not anticipated. She did not have many friends and her god-brother had hardly even spoken to her this year due to him being so busy. The only two friends that she had were Neville and Susan and they were very shy. In all fairness Ally knew that she was very shy as well.
People perceived her shyness as being timid but she really wasn't, she just preferred to not be the centre of attention all the time unlike her siblings and her god-brother. This resulted in her often being left out and pushed to the side-lines, she knew how to blend in, which is why the Hat wanted her in either Slytherin or Ravenclaw but allowed her to choose and she wanted to make her parents proud so chose their old house.
Ally sometimes wondered how her god-brother ever managed to put up with Weasley and Granger; both were equally bad for him, one made him lazy and the other didn't want anyone to be cleverer than her. Ally had known for years that they couldn't possibly be good for her friend, but Harry refused to listen, so Ally had been forced to help him out and do his work more often than not.
This was the last straw, she could take a lot, even Severus Snape; the dreaded Potions' Master had admitted that. But even she had limits, it wasn't very often that she was pushed to them, but this was it. She couldn't keep smiling, pretending that this did not hurt. Because it did, it hurt more than she wanted to admit it. Ally chucked herself onto her bed, over the past five years she had adapted her part of the room to her tastes, so her bed was beautifully made with light blues and light greens, a few cushions garnished it.
Ally looked around her to see her surroundings, the dorm had not changed much over the years, and the colour schemes remained the same as it always had, the four four-poster beds that stood in each corner of the room were very different, and Ally had the one closest to the window, the door and the bathroom. Her colours were light blue, silver, emerald green and burnished gold. She had charmed her portion of the ceiling to show the different constellations in the night sky. The window had been expanded and she had added a window seat that could fit two. Her shelves were full of certificates that she had earned for different subjects and priceless books and Quidditch photos.
The corner next to hers was decorated in garish pinks, something that Ally hated about that corner of the room, it reminded her way too much of their Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Dolores Umbridge. Instead of the garish cat plates that lined Dolores' walls this wall had crystal balls and star charts decorating the walls and shelves. The bed was unmade and covered in make-up. This was Lavender Brown's bed.
The bed opposite Ally's belonged to Parvarti Patil and was brightly coloured, with rich fabrics. The entire corner belonging to the Indian girl was very culturally themed; there were pictures of elephants and of the Patil family. The bed was unmade but had a homey feel to it.
But it was the bed that was diagonally opposite of Ally's that was causing the girl distress, it belonged to Harry's book-worm best-friend, Hermione Granger. The two girl's had a rivalry which was legendary, even Snape and Umbridge had never dared pair the two girls up for anything, Ally had nothing against the girl provided that she kept her big mouth shut and kept away from her and Harry. Granger's bed was decorated in browns and reds and her shelves were full of books, rare ones which the girl shouldn't have been able to afford. It was these books that worried Ally the most, the books were too expensive, and the other girl seemed to get even more every time she and Weasley went to visit Dumbledore. Something that Ally found highly suspect, she had worked out many years ago that the two were being paid to be friends with Harry, not that he ever believed her, so she had given up for the most-part.
Ally's family magic was very strong and she had a strong affinity for fire and her hatred and anger with the Granger girl caused the other girl's bed to be set on fire. She couldn't believe that Granger had told her that she would never amount to anything, that her brain was nothing compared to Hermione's apparently superior brain. Weasley had laughed and hexed her turning her hair green with silver streaks, then Granger had charmed her robes to insult her and Harry had just stood there and said nothing as his god-sister stood up and ran from the room.
Ally smiled with uncharacteristic vindictiveness as she watched Hermione's possessions burn before she thought of a good way to get back at Weasley and Harry, although the latter would get the least harsh punishment.
End Flashback
Ally sighed; she seemed to have managed to have finished her morning run whilst being buried in her thoughts. She walked over to the bleachers where Orion was sitting; he was staring at his parchment.
"Ally," Orion asked tentatively, as he looked up at his older sister, peering at her through surprisingly perceptive grey eyes, which were identical to their father's.
"Yeah, kiddo," Ally plopped down next to her brother, wrapping an arm around the younger Black. Orion hardly ever was tentative, so whatever he wanted to ask must have been important, when he wouldn't meet her eyes, she lifted his face until grey met emerald.
"It really hurts you, right? When Mummy and Daddy forget about you, when Sammie gets all the attention, when Daddy plays with me and Mummy takes me out? When Harry ignores you? He really hurt you didn't he?"
Ally's eyes widened very slightly, no one had ever made such a perceptive comment, she felt that she owed her brother the truth, "Yeah, it hurts, but for what it's worth, they don't mean to hurt me."
"But that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt," Orion replied shrewdly.
Ally laughed deciding not to reply to this; instead she pulled her brother back towards Potter Manor. By this time the rest of the family had woken up, they all greeted Orion and Ally rolled her eyes as she was ignored, but Orion noticed the flash of hurt that went through the emerald eyes as Ally walked away to grab an apple from the fruit bowl.
"Mummy, Ally took me when she went running," Orion told his mother, Athena. From the corner of his eyes Orion could see Ally freeze in the doorway to see their mother's response.
"Alexandra Black, why did you take your brother with you, he could've gotten hurt," Sirius yelled at his daughter.
Ally turned to face her father and Orion looked shocked at his oldest sister's expression, "At least I give a crap about him, you just carry on, I'm sure Sammie may choke on her bacon," her voice was hiding the pain behind the acerbic comments.
Harry had managed to spot the slight change in his god-sister's tone, the girl had been avoiding him since the Hermione incident, and he hadn't even managed to thank her for saving Sirius from Bellatrix at the Department of Mysteries. He quickly moved up and gestured to Ally to take a seat next to him, she hesitated before sliding into the seat next to Harry.
Everyone ignored the sudden uncomfortableness in the room until it was broken by Lily Potter, "How do you think your OWLs went Harry?"
"Not badly, I suppose," her son muttered before turning to look at Ally sideways, "I'm sure that Ally has done much better than me, she's smarter."
"Ally isn't taking her OWLs this year surely," Athena responded incredulously.
Sammie giggled, but when her parents turned to face her she scowled at them, "You were kidding right? Are you two stupid; it's one thing to avoid her, but how did you not know that is 16, her birthday was the same day as Harry's, therefore she would have sat her OWLs."
"Let it be Sam," Ally replied as two owls swooped in, one landing in front of Harry and the other in front of her. "I'm sure they just forgot," at the look on Ally's face Sam didn't pursue the matter but the nine year-old glowered at the blushing adults.
"I'll go first," Harry offered and opened the owl before groaning.
Ally leaned over looking at the results that Harry had received.
"Okay, Als, I'm sorry," Harry suddenly burst out.
Ally shrugged, "None of you have ever apologised before why should you start now?"
"No, I am sorry, much sorrier than you can ever imagine. We just found out that Dumbledore was manipulating us and you were right about Granger and Weasley."
"Great someone finally got a brain, what do you want be to do? Skip down the yellow-brick road?"
Orion scoffed, Harry grimaced, Lily looked horrified but the others stared not understanding the connotation.
"Oh come on, there's no place like home," Lily told her god-daughter who gave a derisive snort in response.
"So what did you get, Harry," Athena asked as she turned the attention away from her first born.
Harry chucked the paperwork down and everyone crowded around to look at the parchment.
Ordinary Wizarding Levels:
Ordinary Wizarding Level Grading system are as follows:
Pass:
(O)- Outstanding
(E)- Exceeds Expectations
(A)- Acceptable
Failing Grades:
(P)- Poor
(D)- Dreadful
(T)- Troll
Harry James Potter achieved:
Ancient Runes
A
Astronomy
A*
Care of Magical Creatures
A
Charms
E
Defence Against the Dark Arts
O
Divination
P
Herbology
E
History of Magic
A
Potions
E
Transfiguration
E
Harry James Potter achieved 9/10 possible OWLs
The Astronomy Exam was disrupted due to this any students that would have otherwise failed were automatically given an A.
"That's really good, Harry," James enthusiastically responded as he looked at the grades.
"I have to admit that I was expecting to do worse, I mean I'm lazy and in the past Ally has done a lot of my work. Which by the way I apologise for making you do, from now on I'm going to be doing my own work," Harry promised and when Ally raised an eyebrow he continued, "I promise."
"One minute, if she did your work how is it possible she does so much worse than you in everything in the past," Athena suddenly asked.
Ally blushed whilst looking down, Sirius reached over and pulled her face up and for the second time that day emerald met grey.
"I hold back so that I can blend in," Ally finally mumbled.
"Why," James asked his god-daughter incredulously, during their school days none of them had hidden in the shadows so it worried them.
"I hide because it means that I am underestimated and no one can tease me," Ally replied.
Sam quickly changed the subject as she could see that this was an uncomfortable topic for her sister, "What did you get Als?"
"I don't know."
"Open it," Orion encouraged his older sister who took her paperwork and opened it.
Ally stared at the paper for the longest amount of time.
"How did you do," Remus asked enthusiastically, Ally didn't reply instead she chucked the parchment down on the table before staring off into space.
The others crowded around the table and peered at her results.
Ordinary Wizarding Levels:
Ordinary Wizarding Level Grading system are as follows:
Pass:
(O)- Outstanding
(E)- Exceeds Expectations
(A)- Acceptable
Failing Grades:
(P)- Poor
(D)- Dreadful
(T)- Troll
Alexandra Athena Lillian Dorea Andromeda Black achieved:
Ancient Runes
O
Astronomy
O*
Arithmancy
O
Care of Magical Creatures
E
Charms
O
Defence Against the Dark Arts
O
Divination*
E
Etiquette and Wizarding Law and Politics*
O
Herbology
O
History of Magic
O
Muggle Studies*
O
Potions
O
Transfiguration
O
Alexandra Athena Lillian Dorea Andromeda Black achieved 13/13 possible OWLs
*The Astronomy Exam was disrupted due to this any students that would have otherwise failed were automatically given an A.
*These subjects were taken out of school hours
"Wow," Harry breathed, "I didn't know that you were doing all those subjects."
"I didn't know that there was a class called Etiquette and Wizarding Law and Politics," Lily muttered.
"It's not a popular class, it's taught by Phineas Nigellus and Dilys Derwent," Ally mentioned coming out of her shock.
"That's exactly why it's so unpopular," Harry pointed out.
Lily watched as Ally rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"Phineas isn't that bad besides he's family, if you're nice to him he's an okay guy," Ally told Harry.
"Great, my god-daughter is friends with the most unpopular Headmaster of Hogwarts," James grimaced only to get hit upside the head by his wife.
"James Charlus Potter, you will not insult your ancestor," Lily reprimanded her husband who rolled his eyes.
"Come on Lils, the guy's a bloody nightmare," Sirius complained.
"Sirius he's family," Athena scowled at her husband.
"Yeah as if the two of you know what family is," Sam told the two.
"Sammie let it go," Ally gave her sister a look that told her to be quiet.
"For what it is worth I forgive you, all of you, I know better than anyone what it's like to have a famous family member and I mean you never meant to hurt me, it just happened. But never do it again," Ally warned her family.
Harry rapidly changed the subject, "Well; now I can relax for the next year, thankfully the workload won't be that heavy.
Ally laughed, "And here I thought that you had turned over a new leaf. Don't you want to prove that you are better than me?"
Harry groaned, "I guess McGonagall was right when she called me a sloth."
Ally giggled as she looked proudly at her test scores, today no one could take this pride away from her. Harry looked over at Ally, he had never really noticed it before but she had a really nice laugh and she was rather pretty as well, he shook his head, he could not be having these thoughts about his god-sister for Merlin's sake. It was wrong, but then again, why did it feel so right?