Prologue: Enter Hollis Potter, the Girl Who Lived

It was safe to say that Petunia Dursley hadn't been happy when she found her sister's daughter on her front steps. She had been retrieving the milk bottles and had nearly trodden on the small bundle of blankets. She had been curious at first- almost angry at how someone had left their child on a stoop, her stoop no doubt- but that had quickly morphed into absolute horror and rage when she got a good look at the child's face.

She had screamed loudly and shrilly causing the child to wake up and start wailing. The screaming and the wailing combined most likely woke the whole neighborhood at the time, but she hadn't cared. All she had wanted to know was why the Potter's daughter- never her niece- was laying on the front porch. When her husband had come down the stairs, bed headed and very ruffled, Petunia had already taken the wailing child into the house, holding her like a bomb that was ready to go off. Vernon Dursley, her husband, had spotted the letter that had been resting on the stoop and picked it up, opening it. He had nearly dropped it in severe fright.

The letter, the one that changed their lives forever, explained that her sister, the freak she was, and her abnormal husband with the horrid shaggy hair had been murdered. Blown up. Their daughter, Hollis, had survived. She was to live with them until she was ready to take her rightful place in the Wizarding World.

Vernon and Petunia looked at each other, their faces mirroring their looks of disgust. The child had still been crying, though not as loudly. They had found out then that Hollis could self sooth herself, unlike their son, Dudley, but that hardly mattered to them. What did matter to them was that they, of all people, had to take her in, the abomination.

Though, there was a reason for this. It said in The Letter, as it was later called, that Hollis was different and needed protection. She may have survived an attack from the Dark Lord What's-His-Face and defeated him in the same night, but his followers could be just as terrible as the Dark Lord had been. There had been something in there about Blood Wards and even though Vernon didn't understand it, Petunia did. As much as it pained and angered her, it sometimes did help when your sister was a witch.

There was also another reason for leaving the obviously magical child on Number 4 Privet Drive's stoop, one that nearly made Petunia pitch the year old child out the door. But that reason was hardly discussed in the Dursley household. It was a taboo subject, even when Vernon and Petunia were alone.

Years had passed and they had tried to keep Hollis as downtrodden as possible. Vernon was hoping that if she was 'raised' right, they would squash the magic right out of her but Petunia knew better. The child's oddball father had an oddball family and if anything, her freakish sister was just as weird. Besides, once you're born with the ability to do magic, you can't do anything short of murder to get rid of it.

They had hidden her from the public eye, frightened that someone would spot something abnormal about her. But on the surface, Hollis was normal girl, save for the fact that she was much too small for her age and bruised from all the fights she got into with Dudley. But even so, people voiced that there was something strange about her and that made the Dursley's go into a frenzy of mass hysteria. They never beat the girl- they were too frightened of the repercussions of beating an untrained witch- but they had certainly neglected her, making her live in a cupboard and locking her in there without food when 'funny things' happened.

They had nearly died when she first showed the signs of magic. She had gotten angry- she had temper like a ticking atomic bomb sometimes- and Vernon's wine glass had shattered spectacularly, creating a shower of sparkling glass and deep red wine. She had been three or four at the time and to make matters even worse, Vernon's sister Marge had been there at the table with them. She hated Hollis, she made that abundantly clear, but she hadn't put the blame on her for that particular incident. They had punished her severely for that.

Another incident involved Dudley, Hollis, and, from what Dudley said, a fire. No one had been hurt and since Dudley had a tendency to blow things way out of proportion, especially when it came to his cousin, they hadn't punished her for it. They had seen the newly formed bruise on Hollis's cheek and assumed that Hollis had gotten defensive and had started a small fire that refused to burn anything- this was thanks to her 'special abilities' that the Dursley's refused to talk about for it made the freak even freakier- in her fright. She had been five.

When Hollis started school with Dudley, the Dursley's had been beside themselves. Not many things happened at school, thank God, but there were some incidents that made heads turn. She had once turned a teacher's wig blue and had 'jumped' onto the school roof when Dudley and his friends had chased her. Otherwise, every other magical catastrophe happened in the Dursley household. The catastrophes themselves only happened when Hollis was angry or scared so, once again, the Dursley's kept Hollis as downtrodden as possible.

However, as Hollis grew older, she grew more defiant, something that scared them beyond all reason. She could read them like a book and she knew that she scared them but never knew why. She never knew what had truly happened to her parents- the Dursley's told her that they had been killed in a car crash-, she never knew her true heritage as a witch, she didn't know how she really got the lightning bolt shaped scar on her forehead- they told her she got it from the car crash-, and she certainly didn't know that she was revered in the Wizarding World.

But, what she did know was that she was different. The girl wasn't stupid. Far from it, in fact, for she could be terribly clever when she wanted to be. But this fact she found out for herself. She probably never knew how she was different but she knew that she was different.

The Dursley's had never told her anything. They had forbidden her to ask questions. If she did, she would be sent to her cupboard.

Too soon came Dudley's eleventh birthday and inadvertently Hollis's birthday as well. Soon, they would find out if strange little Hollis Potter would live up to her name. And Petunia found herself hoping, for the girl's sake surprisingly, that she didn't.

***

3