Author's Note: Here is the plan.
I am going to write four Fem Harrys. Each one, for me, fits the perfect profile of a different Hogwarts house. Each will also have a different name, so readers can differentiate better. Based on their house profiling, they will each also have different wand woods and Patronuses. In all other respects, however, they will just be Harry. I will take that starting canvas and create further differences with it within the text itself. These girls will be similar yet dissimilar to the Harry that you know, and also similar yet dissimilar to each other.
I will make four different stories and rotate through chapters for each girl, telling her full story with her at the helm. I call this the Four Fem Harrys Project.
This document you're reading right now is the Gryffindor Fem Harry.
Please note that this is a full canon rewrite. All canon information and unchanged aspects will be included. I will also be attempting to make the story as relatable and floating timeline as possible.
The final pairing for each girl will be Tom Riddle, different from Voldemort, partly because one of the only things all four girls will have in common is a connection to the same person - but in his younger human self, before some of the corruption and most of the crimes, I think the interest and potential changes would be far more pronounced.
Darcey One
Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their niece on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose over their front garden, which formed a perfect, neat square lined with two layers: one of grey stone, the other of dark green hedge. The sun spread across their flat space of neatly mown lawn, over their shiny midnight blue car and Aunt Petunia's perfect rows of almost eerily precision-perfect flower-beds. The beds were filled with conventional flowers, tulips and lilies mainly.
Next the sun spread across their front steps, across their mahogany front door with the gleaming bronze number four. It crept through lacy white curtains, through a large window into their living room, which had the clean white carpet that spoke of frequent vacuuming and no animals, a falsely pleasant lavender scent from an air freshener in the corner, smooth white walls and ceiling, and two cream-colored armchairs set next to a long mint green sofa, all set in front of a television in the far corner of the room. A tiny end table with an ugly patterned vase from the shopping network sat in another corner of the room. Their fireplace was, as always, red brick with a brown wood mantel piece.
Everything almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantel piece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different colored bonnets. But Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a video game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother.
The room also held certain signs of a small, dark-haired girl. For one thing, she was in a formal family dinner party portrait on one wall. They looked so perfect and doll-like, dressed nicely in the photograph. Look, there was the father and the mother, and there was the little boy and the little girl.
The small, dark-haired girl was also in other photographs. She could be seen riding bicycles or playing video games with Dudley, for example. If one looked carefully enough, one could see she was only in the photographs with Dudley; Mr and Mrs Dursley either stood stiffly off to the side or weren't in these photographs at all, and Dudley was the only one smiling at the girl or including her.
But no one ever bothered to look carefully enough.
The girl was Darcey Potter, the Dursleys' niece, and she was asleep at the moment but not for long. Her Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.
"Up! Get up! Now!"
Darcey woke with a start. Her aunt rapped on the door again.
"Up!" she screeched.
"I'm up," Darcey grumbled quietly, "I'm up," sitting upright in her bed and running a hand through her messy black hair. She was scowling and felt rather like yelling or throwing something at the cupboard door, but decided this would not exactly be a bright idea and so held herself in. Darcey heard her aunt walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. She stared, blinking blearily, at the far wall and tried to remember the dream she had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. She had a funny feeling she'd had the same dream before.
Her aunt was back outside the door. "Get a move on," she said, "I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Darcey muttered sarcastically.
"What was that?" her aunt snapped through the door.
"I said I wouldn't dream of ruining Dudley's precious birthday breakfast!" said Darcey fiercely, and perhaps bitterly, through the door.
"Well, since that's your attitude, perhaps you can finish the whole meal!" Aunt Petunia snarled, and Darcey heard her heels clacking away up the stairs.
Darcey got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair under her bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Darcey was used to spiders because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where she slept. She had been banished here as an infant by her aunt and uncle immediately upon arriving in their house as an orphan.
Similarly, they had never given her any gifts or clothes of significance either. Every hobby and school friend she had, everything she owned, was on the kindness of her cousin Dudley. Dudley was… not perfect. He was horribly spoiled by his adoring parents, a rather massive boy with a big gang of guy friends who already at nearly eleven liked getting into fights with other boys in his school. But he considered Darcey his quiet but passionate, pint-sized firebrand of a sister, and he was a good brother. Since they were in the same class, he kept her from being picked on in school and allowed her to have friends and hobbies. He used his own money, given by his parents, to buy things for her. Sometimes he could even swing it so that she was allowed on holidays with her friends, or on fun outings with the family, though that hadn't been the case today for his eleventh birthday. Today would probably be boring, lonely and miserable, three of Darcey's least favorite things.
Darcey was only allowed these things because Dudley asked for them, even threw temper tantrums over them, and her aunt and uncle couldn't bear their Duddy being upset, so they gave him whatever he wanted. In their most natural state and in most other matters, they were terribly strict, chore-heavy, and they repressed her as much as possible.
The cupboard was really a small closet, a rectangular space with a bare light bulb and a ceiling that slanted downward in the direction of the kitchen. It had plain white walls with wood lining, and yes, sometimes spiders.
But she had decorated it. Rock band posters covered the walls, from all of her favorite rock bands based on the music Dudley had bought for her. Funko Pop figurines of all of her favorite comic book and gaming characters lined the shelves - Darcey's absolute favorite hobbies were comics and gaming, both video games and more traditional tabletop gaming, both hobbies supplied by Dudley. Souvenirs from holiday locations with friends like a jar of sand or a series of beautiful pebbles sat on high shelves. Clothes were scattered messily across the cupboard floor.
She got dressed there in the cupboard. Darcey had naturally thick and wild shiny black hair, almond shaped bright green eyes, a thin friendly face, a tiny pixie-like body, dimpled knees, and glasses. She also had a thin scar on her forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. It did make her rather self conscious, and the first question she could ever remember asking her Aunt Petunia was how she had gotten it.
"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said, "and don't ask questions."
Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.
But Dudley and sometimes Darcey's school friends did buy Darcey clothes, even letting her pick out what she liked. Some of her typical points of fashion consisted of things like sunglasses, T-shirts with fading designs, sandals that left unwelcome tan lines, socks with cats on them, flannels and sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and designs full of bright colors, big pictures, and words.
She only ever wore her hair one of two ways. Either she put it up in a high, sleek ponytail, or she used her curling iron to give herself a long mane of big, wild loose black curls. Her glasses, both the sunglasses pair and the regular pair, were in a semi-rimless design and shape.
So, for example, one outfit could be flannel with sleeves rolled up to the elbow and a long mane of big, wild loose black curls. Another outfit could be a T-shirt with a big, colorful fading word design, short jean shorts, sandals and cat socks, a ponytail, and her sunglasses pair of glasses hanging from her neckline while her regular pair was on her face.
When Darcey was ready for the day, she went down the stairs and down the hall, into the kitchen. It was one long space, dining room fading into kitchen area, and it was all gleaming white with marble tiling and bold black accents. The kitchen table was plainer, simple manufactured wood. Today it was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike.
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Darcey was turning over the bacon. He couldn't find anything particularly wrong with her, so he harrumphed, heaved himself into his seat in the kitchen table, opened up his morning newspaper, and ignored her.
Uncle Vernon was one long, straight line with a pregnancy-like bulge in the middle. All of the weight gained had gone directly to his waistline. He wore black suits with expensive, boring grey ties even on weekends, and had a pouchy, stern purple face with a constantly ruffled and disapproving-looking black mustache and receding hairline.
Aunt Petunia was his polar opposite - a thin and bony woman with a snobbish look curling her sharp nose and thinned lips, she had a neat chignon of blonde hair, sharp beady blue eyes, and wore very ugly flowery dresses, perfume, and clacking heels.
Traditionalism was important to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. They lived in a climbing upper-class gated suburb. Uncle Vernon directed a corporation and had a steady nine-to-five and followed the news while Aunt Petunia was a cook, tea-brewer, baker, and stay-at-home wife and mother.
Darcey was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley had a round pink face and a rather chubby look about him, but he was also tall, massive, and broad-shouldered. He was a mean puncher, enjoying boxing and wrestling just as much as his video games, and no one at school dared make fun of him. He had small blue eyes, smooth blond hair, and he didn't care much for fashion himself so he usually wore the big and rather ugly sweaters his mother had bought for him. She adoringly said constantly that her Duddy looked like a baby angel.
Darcey put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.
"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."
"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here, under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."
"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Darcey, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, quickly pulled her plate into her lap in case Dudley turned the table over.
Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?"
Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Darcey knew the answer, but she wasn't going to risk a tantrum being directed at her by telling Dudley that. She knew how to handle her surrogate brother.
Finally Dudley said slowly, "So I'll have thirty… thirty…"
"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.
"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."
Uncle Vernon chuckled.
"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.
At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Darcey and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote controlled aeroplane, sixteen new video games that he would definitely be trying out with Darcey later, and a movie player. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone, looking both angry and worried.
"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take her." She jerked her head in Darcey's direction.
Dudley brightened, pleased, and he and Darcey shared a glance as Darcey's heart gave a leap of hope. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Unless Dudley could swing letting Darcey come along, every year Darcey was left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Darcey hated it there, and had to tamper down on her bad temper during visits and subsist to scowls and grumbles as best she could. The whole house smelled of cabbage and was covered in knitted afghans, and Mrs Figg made her look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned, there on the stained sofa in her dark, dusty, cluttered home. As Darcey had said: boring, lonely and miserable.
Usually she hated Dudley's birthdays.
"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Darcey as though she'd planned this.
"It's not like I broke her leg!" said Darcey heatedly, standing and glaring right back.
"I wouldn't put it past you, and sit down," Aunt Petunia snapped. Darcey sat slowly and mutinously.
"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.
"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the girl."
The Dursleys often spoke about Darcey like this, as though she wasn't there - or rather, as though she was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug. Deadpan, Darcey put her chin in her hand and gave the far wall a bored, disgusted look as her day was planned over her head.
"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"
"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.
"You could just leave me here," Darcey monotoned, still glaring at the far wall. It was nice staying at home. She could play all the single-player games she wanted, from video games to solitaire, and she could read her comics out in the open while blasting rock music. "Or I could go to a friends' house."
Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon. "And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled. "Or, worse yet, inflict you for an entire day with no warning on some other poor unsuspecting family?"
"I won't blow up the house," said Darcey disbelievingly, finally lifting her chin from her palm, "and it's not like I'll attack anybody." But they weren't listening.
"I suppose we could take her to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "and leave her in the car…"
"That car's new, she's not sitting in it alone…"
Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying - it had been years since he'd really cried - but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted. "Mummy, I want… her… to… come," Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs.
Darcey perked up cautiously. It might not be the most morally arrow-straight way to go about things, but you couldn't argue with results. Watching Dudley con one over on his parents was actually always rather funny. It was touching, too, though she'd never admit it, that he stuck up for her in his own weird way.
"Oh, my sweet, sensitive, good-hearted little boy!" Aunt Petunia cried, flinging her arms around him. Dudley shot Darcey a secretive, mischievous grin through the gap in his mother's arms.
Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a tiny, thin, dark boy, usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them and much cleverer than Dudley himself. This made him sound rather malicious - he wasn't actually. He had quite a cheerful sense of humor and outside of fights was the opposite of underhanded, could be positively friendly. Dudley just purposefully went for people who fought dirty. Seeing a fellow guy enter the room, Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.
Half an hour later, Darcey was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' shiny midnight-blue car with Piers and Dudley, chattering with her cousin and his friend in quite a friendly way, with sparks of good-natured teasing in her expression. She was officially on the way to the zoo for the first time in her life. Her aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with her, and anyway Dudley had asked.
But before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Darcey aside into the living room.
"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Darcey's as she tilted her chin backward and glared cautiously, "I'm warning you now, girl - any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."
"I'm not going to do anything," said Darcey in a hard voice, looking at the ceiling.
But Uncle Vernon didn't believe her. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around Darcey, and it was just no good telling the Dursleys she didn't make them happen.
Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Darcey coming back from the barber's looking as though she hadn't been at all, equally tired of hearing Uncle Vernon complain about it, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut Darcey's hair so short she was almost bald except for her bangs, which her aunt left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had teased Darcey mercilessly, and in spite of his promises to keep her from being bullied she had spent a sleepless night imagining being laughed at in school the next day. Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia 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.
Another time, back before Dudley and her friends started purchasing her clothes, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force Darcey into a very ugly, faded old grey secondhand dress. The harder she tried to pull it over Darcey's head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet but certainly wouldn't fit Darcey. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Darcey wasn't punished.
On the other hand, she'd gotten into terrible trouble for that incident with the bully at school two years ago. A big older bully had cornered Darcey on the playground, laughing and jeering at her, and even as Dudley went to sprint over the boy had pushed her - and suddenly a gigantic, invisible force had shoved into him and pushed him completely off the wood chips, out of arm's reach. A very angry letter had been sent home from Darcey's headmistress. Darcey hadn't been able to explain this incident, either, but all she had been able to do was shout helplessly at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of her cupboard.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong. She was spending the day somewhere fun with Dudley and one of his friends, and in the same way it was when she was doing her own hobbies or with her own friends, right now life was perfect.
While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things. People at work, Darcey, the council, Darcey, the bank, and Darcey were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.
"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.
Darcey had overheard from her place in the dark leather back seat chatting with Dudley and Piers. She decided to take a risk and have a bit of fun, remembering her dream from this morning.
"Uncle Vernon," she asked, mock innocent, "can motorcycles fly?"
Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Darcey, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache, "NO! NO, MOTORCYCLES ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO FLY!"
"Oh," said Darcey, her eyes wide and curious. "Okay."
Dudley and Piers were snickering appreciatively.
If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than Darcey asking questions, it was Darcey talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon. They seemed to think she might get dangerous ideas. They barely allowed her comics and video games, and only then because Dudley was also allowed them and he had asked for her to be able to join in with him.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families; crowds swarmed toward the big gate entrance decorated with vast animal statues. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because Dudley was about to break out his own money and Uncle Vernon found the ice cream lady's expression deeply embarrassing, they reluctantly bought Darcey a small lemon sherbet twist ice cream.
Darcey had a very good morning. She, Dudley, and Piers had fun traversing the countless twisting clay-like roads and little bridges, looking out over the different animal enclosures with interest. Darcey drank in each kind of animal happily. Dudley and Piers were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, though Darcey could have easily gone with another few hours. They ate in the zoo restaurant, which was full of fake plastic trees with swinging monkeys and jungle sounds from hidden speakers, and besides Dudley having a tantrum because his Knickerbocker Glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, that went fine as well.
After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. The enclosure arced around in a C, lots of cool dark brickwork with lit glass reptile enclosures inlaid among the brick. Behind the artificially golden glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons, to Darcey's good-natured exasperation. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can, but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.
"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.
"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.
"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.
Darcey moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. She wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass, trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up. At least she had plenty of other places to visit.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Darcey's.
It winked.
Darcey stared. Then she looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. She looked back at the snake and winked, too.
The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Darcey a look that said quite plainly:
"I get that all the time."
"I know," Darcey murmured through the glass, though she wasn't sure the snake could hear her. "It must be really annoying."
The snake nodded vigorously.
"Where do you come from, anyway?" Darcey asked.
The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Darcey peered at it.
Boa Constrictor, Brazil.
"Was it nice there?"
The boa constrictor jabbed its tail again and Darcey read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"
As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Darcey made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.
"Out of the way, you," he told Darcey quite rudely, and knowing better than to mess with that look, Darcey stepped neatly out of the way. Piers and Dudley leaned right up close to the glass, oohing and aahing.
Darcey watched with sympathy as slowly, hissing irritably at them, the Brazilian boa constrictor sank down into its former torpor.
Darcey thought she was in the clear. But then the whole family piled back in Uncle Vernon's car at the end of the day in the zoo parking lot, chattering excitedly. And Piers calmed down enough to say, "Darcey was talking to it, weren't you, Darcey?"
Darcey tried to laugh it off as she felt tension fill the car. "Oh, yes, Piers," she said in a falsely sarcastic, cheerful voice, "I was talking to the boa constrictor."
But Uncle Vernon, for one, was not fooled.
He waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting in on Darcey. But Dudley stepped quickly into their path. "She was helping me!" he said forcefully, his face reddening. "She was talking to the snake, hoping it would move for me!"
"... Fine. Tonight and tomorrow in the cupboard. She's let out the morning after. No meals until then," Uncle Vernon growled out.
"But Dad -" Dudley began desperately.
"It was going to be two weeks with only one meal a day!" Uncle Vernon thundered in the darkened sophisticated living room, and his eyes flashed in Darcey's direction. "Go!"
Then he collapsed into an armchair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.
Darcey lay in her dark cupboard much later, periodically checking her watch. She'd specifically requested it from Dudley for times like these. The watch was practical. She kept an eye on the time and waited for a moment she was sure that the Dursleys would be asleep. Then she snuck into the kitchen and stole food.
This was not a sign of Darcey's overt personality, not a manifestation of her true nature. For Darcey, this was pure survival. She kept plastic bags of food hidden underneath her bed after stealing nights during cupboard punishments.
She kept a bucket in the corner in case she had to pee outside of her two allotted times a day outside the cupboard. She always made sure the light bulb was working, so that she could read comics or listen to rock music on headphones during long afternoons. She kept a can of bug spray in her cupboard for really nasty spiders. The worst times were when they got in her hair at night.
Basic survival.
She'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as she could remember, ever since she'd been a baby and her parents had died in that car crash. She couldn't remember being in the car when her parents had died. Sometimes, when she strained her memory during long hours in her cupboard, she came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on her forehead. This, she supposed, was the car crash, though she couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. She couldn't remember her parents at all. Her aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course she was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.
When she had been younger, Darcey had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take her away, had wandered countless streets just trying to escape her home, but none of it had ever happened and nothing had ever worked; the Dursleys were her only family. Yet sometimes she thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know her. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Darcey furiously if she knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop withouting buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at her once on a bus. A bald man in a very long, purple coat had actually bowed over her hand and kissed it in the street the other day, like she was a princess, and then walked away without a word.
The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Darcey tried to get a closer look.