Chapter 1: 'Irish'
My first story, if anyone actually reads this, reviews would be appreciated. Thanks!
Emily Richter sat back in the worn lounge that occupied her parent's sitting room. It had been a quiet day, by all accounts, despite the dangerous reality that was her existence. Her parents were both branded with the Dark Mark, but had kept Emily a secret from the world, including Voldemort, until she was 13. At that point, her parents had quietly contacted Albus Dumbledore in order to switch sides. They had joined the Death Eaters when they were barely out of Hogwarts, years later regretting their decision, and they realised that their daughter would never be safe with the Dark Lord around.
Dumbledore agreed to help them, they were now spies for the Order of the Phoenix, working against the Death Eaters from within.
It had been two years since the alliance with Albus Dumbledore had been forged. Emily had been home-schooled for years, with tutoring from Dumbledore for the last two Summers. Her education would have been at a Sixth-Year level at Hogwarts, but she had a natural talent for Charms, Transfiguration and Potion-making that rivalled eight-year expectations. She needed, however, to have more knowledge than what her parents could provide. She needed more time to debate with Dumbledore over the intricacies of permanent enchantments. She needed to be around other people her age, she needed…
A cup of tea.
And with this thought, Emily stood, and walked into the kitchen to prepare just that. She lazily flicked her wand at the kettle to boil water, and summoned a teabag and mug, placing the former inside the latter, and this on the kitchen bench. By this time, the water was boiling, and she reached across to pick up the kettle and poured just the right amount of the scalding hot liquid into the mug. You needed to be finicky with details if you were ever going to brew potions successfully.
A muttered spell caused cold milk to pour from her wand, and Emily smiled, satisfied that her tea was high art. She carefully carried the mug back into the sitting room, where it sat, cooling on the coffee table. Emily herself sat, content to wait a minute or two so as not to burn her taste buds from her tongue.
There was a knock on the door.
She sighed. Leaving her tea on the table, she walked down the hall to her father's office, and alerted him to the fact that they had visitors. It was standard procedure for a household with no elves to have the head greet any guests, while the other family members stayed out of the way.
What was not standard was the cry of surprise that came from her father when he reached these guests. Interested, Emily leaned towards the hallway, where she could hear what was going on. The sounds of a body hitting the floor and the teacup smashing reached her ears, and her eyes widened.
"You dare to betray the Dark Lord?" A female voice screamed. "CRUCIO!"
Her father's cries galvanised Emily into action. She swallowed thickly and ran softly on the carpeted floor to her mother, who looked both furious and terrified.
"Go," her mother whispered urgently. " Run, get to the park. I contacted Dumbledore, he knows to meet you there. Don't let anyone see you. If they don't know you exist already, they will when they find you bedroom and any photos of you. They'll look for you. Be careful-"
Her mother was cut off by an agonised scream. Looking distraught, she pushed a portkeyed spoon into Emily's hands.
"The password's 'asleep'. I love you."
And with those parting words, Daniella Richter pulled out her wand and strode into the living room to defend her family.
"Asleep," Emily gasped, and was portkeyed to a Muggle library somewhere.
Emily quickly recovered from portkeying, and took in her surroundings. The emergency escape plan her parents had drilled into her took over, and she marched to the A-F shelf in the children's section. Browsing titles quickly, she pulled out a book about an elephant losing his balloon. She scanned the pages quickly, recognised the password, and checked that the library was empty.
"Lemonade," She intoned, then something hooked onto her midsection and she was pulled to a riverbank.
She found the sandal quickly. This took her to an empty parking garage, where a plastic bag was tied to a rock. The word 'Neanderthal' transported her once more, to the designated park.
Emily scanned the area for signs of danger, and when she found none set off for a mass of bushes several metres from the playground, still carrying the used portkeys. She transfigured the spoon into a small, camouflaged tent, where she buried it in the bushes for safe-keeping. Satisfied with her hiding spot, she walked three streets away and transfigured the bag into a realistic dummy of herself. It was enchanted to walk in the direction she faced it towards until the charm wore off, which would be around two hours later.
She turned, walked back to the park, and continued for several blocks, then performed the same magic on the sandal. Programming the book-turned-Emily to walk another direction, she now had three decoys walking away from her position, and getting further. Emily returned to the park, crawled into her improvised shelter, and cast disillusionment and notice-me-not charms on herself and the tent.
She sat in silence for over an hour, until Albus Dumbledore apparated underneath the swings with a loud crack.
The ageing wizard turned to her, ignoring her perfect concealment charms, and held out an arm.
"Emily, my dear, come quickly. It would not be wise to stay here any longer."
Emily dropped the protections she had been maintaining and ran for the familiar safety of Dumbledore's presence, tears staining her pale cheeks. Ignoring his arm, she hugged him as tightly as she dared, seeking comfort. The ancient wizard moved one hand to rest on her back, and dissaparated.
They reappeared in a room that Emily took to be Dumbledore's office, on the desk were dozens of spinning, shiny mechanisms- whose purposes, she knew for a fact, were completely useless- and to one side was an open cabinet displaying a Pensieve.
The ageing headmaster gently pushed her into a chair, as her body didn't seem to want to move on its own, and sat behind his desk.
"Are my parents…" She broke off.
"They were killed. I'm sorry." Dumbledore answered her.
They sat still for a long time, him regarding her with sadness in his timeless eyes, and her frozen from shock, absorbing the events of that evening.
They had been frozen for so long that Emily jumped when Dumbledore moved to offer her a lemon drop. She stared at him for a long moment, then took two from the bowl.
As she popped them into her mouth, systematically pushing each to one side with her tongue, he leant back into his chair and drew a breath to speak.
"Emily, I trust you know what a Pensieve is, and how one works?"
She nodded once, still partly focused on the lemon drops in her mouth.
"Would you," he continued. "Be willing to give me a copy of your memories of this evening, so that I may view them?"
Emily paused in her sugar-based machinations, and, now fully focused on Dumbledore, nodded again.
Drawing his wand, Dumbledore stood and walked around the desk to stand beside her, pointing his wand-tip to her temple.
She gasped as the silvery memory left her head with the wand-tip, the sensation was oddly like having her head plunged temporarily into cold water, yet somehow not unpleasant.
"Help yourself to the lemon drops."
With a parting nod, the wizard put the memory delicately into the Pensieve, closely followed by his face.
SSSSSSSSSSSS
He had been in the Pensieve for a long time. In the silence, Emily privately mourned her parents, but knew that they had died protecting her. She resolved to kill the Dark Lord. Personally.
But it had been hours since Dumbledore had entered her memories, and plotting to kill powerful wizards is, in all truth, not an extremely entertaining pastime.
Her first two lemon drops had died a slow death, but the next set had been crushed by impatient teeth in a way that cold only be described as brutal.
Finally, Emily got up and walked around Dumbledore's office for a time, investigating mysterious ticking noises, and came across a scruffy old hat. Clearly, there was nothing she could do but put it on her head.
'Hello.' Said a voice in her mind.
Emily screamed, then remembered being told that the Hogwarts Sorting Hat spoke inside your head, and realised that this was it.
'Um, hello?' She ventured.
'Ah, come to your senses, have we?' The Hat chuckled.
'Yes… You ARE the Sorting Hat, aren't you?'
'Of course I am. Now, would you like to be Sorted, or shall I sing for you?'
Emily considered this.
'Both.' She decided. This was greeted by resounding laughter that bounced against the walls of her mind.
'Aren't we greedy? Alright then, which first?'
'Sorting. If Dumbledore comes back, I'd like to have that done. Though I don't know if I'm even going to attend Hogwarts.'
'Fair enough. Now, let's see…'
Emily waited patiently as the Hat mused atop her head.
'You're a thinker, you'd fit Ravenclaw nicely. Loyal, and hardworking. Hufflepuff values that. Cunning suits Slytherin, and you survived this afternoon quite well. You're quite headstrong. With some growth, you'd be a great Gryffindor too. Hmm, where to put you?'
She didn't really care where she was Sorted to, but she wished it wouldn't take so long.
'Alright, your intelligence would never thrive in Gryffindor, and you'd have no reliable sources to help you in Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw puts knowledge before all, but your interests lie beyond solid facts. It seems to me that you would do best in-'
"SLYTHERIN!" Emily was deafened by the roar that suddenly came from the Hat.
'Sorry about that,' it apologised. 'Force of habit, you know.'
"It's okay," dismissed Emily. "Any advice?"
'The Slytherins are usually a solitary bunch, but when they put their efforts behind one leader, the results are extraordinary. Having allies among them is a good idea, and friends, if possible, are even better. Make friends with people from other houses. The rift that has grown between Gryffindor and Slytherin could easily be manipulated by You-Know-Who. If you could help mend it, we would all be a lot safer.'
"Right," Emily nodded. "Now, about that song?"
'Of course.' The Hat cleared its non-existent throat.
'Over the hill, and down by the stream,
I slept, and oh-ho, in my dreams,
My Rosie, my Bonnie, my sweet lady love
Transfigured herself into a white dove.
She flew away in the morning, always at first light,
But my Rosie, my Bonnie, did not come back tonight
Oh, my wand and my kettle did never turn-'
At that moment, Dumbledore pulled away from the Pensieve, stopping the Hat from continuing his song.
"Good bye, Hat. It's been nice meeting you."
'And you.'
Emily pulled off the Hat and replaced it on the shelf beside her. She walked back down to the desk, and waited for Dumbledore to speak.
"Emily, your mother was right," he began. "You will need to go into hiding. Luckily for you, your parents predicted such a situation, and planned for it. The Death Eaters know what you look like, and they'll be searching for you, so you will attend Hogwarts, in a faux body."
The look of confusion on her face seemed to prompt him into continuing.
"Have you ever heard of Polyjuice potion? In effect, this method of disguise is similar, but much more complicated. The user travels to a secure location, with two or more attendants, where the faux body is. The user takes a tailored potion, which puts his or her consciousness inside the replacement body, leaving their real body in a coma-like state. The attendants act as guardians for the body while the host is living in the fake. This is what you will be doing while Voldemort is still at large. You will have access to your body, which will be safely hidden in the lower dungeons. Any questions?"
"Who will guard my body?"
"House-elves." His eyes twinkled mischievously.
"Okay then," she sighed. "Guess I don't have much of a choice. When do I change bodies?"
"Right now, if you're feeling well enough."
Emily followed him out of the room, and down to the dungeons, where a lilac potion was bubbling. Dumbledore levitated this, summoned two house-elves, and continued to the lower dungeons, stopping in a room with two large glass cylinders, one of them holding the body of a girl about Emily's age. The empty one, Emily guessed, was where she would be stored.
Dumbledore gestured to the empty cylinder, and she climbed in, sitting with her back against one end. Dumbledore handed her a glass full of the potion.
"The house-elves will put you into position once you're in the other body. The transition will feel a bit strange, but don't worry about it. You'll adjust to the new body pretty quickly. Ready?"
Emily nodded, then put the glass to her lips, and drank the liquid in one go.
Her vision started blurring, and she felt suddenly dizzy.
"Dumbledore, if this is some party potion I swear…" She blacked out.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Emily opened her eyes slowly. Everything was blurry. There were voices all around her, high-pitched, worried voices, and an older voice that seemed to reassure them. She blinked, and her vision cleared somewhat. She blinked again.
Now able to see properly, she stared up at the face of Albus Dumbledore, who was grinning down at her madly. She frowned.
"Alright, facial movement working," The tiny house-elf next to him squeaked. "Let's check out reflexes."
A baseball bat appeared above her face, and swung back as if to hit her. She jumped up, grabbed the bat, and broke it on her thigh.
"Check. Hearing?"
"Yes, I can hear you, you mad little elf!" She rushed to answer, suspecting that this test would involve air-horns.
"Okay, vocabulary and vocal chords appear to be fine. Headmaster, sir, the transition seems to have been flawless," the elf addressed Dumbledore.
"Excellent. Please begin guarding at once."
Emily took this moment to inspect her body. She was taller than she had been. Her arms were still pale, but the curly, dark hair currently tangling down her back was much longer than hers had been before. Wait, curly? Her hair had been dead straight, boring. Not to mention blond.
She conjured a mirror to check her face. She had freckles. Her cheekbones were higher, making her smile more prominent. Long lashes framed pale blue eyes, her nose was smaller. Hmm, she looked Irish.
She tried walking around for a bit. Her legs were longer, which meant she could move her legs less while going at the same speed as her normal body.
Satisfied, she turned back to Dumbledore.
"Excellent," he declared. "Now, as it's the start of the year, you can begin along with everyone else. No-one knew about you anyway, so it's okay to tell them the truth most of the time. Maybe refrain from mentioning your real body in casual conversation. I assume the Hat Sorted you?"
SSSSSSSSSSSS
They travelled to the Slytherin common rooms, where the password was 'Candle Wax', Dumbledore directed her to the girl's dorms, and bade her a good night.
Emily climbed the stairs until she found her room, and collapsed on her bed.