This fic was inspired by the song Superboy and the Invisible Girl from the musical Next to Normal. I listened to it so many times and this just fell into my head so I had to type it out! Please review=D
Invisible Girl
In Violet Potter's own opinion, there was nothing special about herself. She was small and skinny. She had unruly black hair that fought against every comb and brush ever made. Her eyes were lackluster brown, not the vibrant green of her brother's. She lived in a small walk-in closet between the upstairs bathroom and her cousin Dudley's second bedroom. Her relatives ignored her, centering all the abusive attention on her brother because she was not even worth that sort of notice.
She thought she was very much like her brother; she looked like him except the eyes and the glasses, they were both quiet, and they both had odd events that happened around them.
When the bullies chased Harry, he ended up on the roof. When they chased Violet, they ended up on the roof.
When Aunt Petunia had given Harry a terrible haircut, his hair had grown back overnight. When Aunt Petunia had tried to give Violet a trim, her hair refused to be cut, the scissors nearly breaking with the amount of effort her aunt exerted.
She had not, however, been able to speak to snakes, despite her repeated attempts to do so after the zoo incident.
"I don't know how it happened, Vi. I was talking to the snake, not expecting any sort of answer, and then the snake started replying," he said when she had asked him for the hundredth time how he had managed to speak to a snake. They were in her closet, hiding him from Uncle Vernon because somehow his coffee mug had shattered, blowing hot coffee all over him, and he had chosen to blame Harry for it.
She had nodded, accepting the answer for now, and curled into a ball on his lap. This comforted him, having at least one person who cared in a house full of people who didn't, and this was precisely the reason that the Dursley's often kept these two separated. They didn't want either to get the idea that someone loved them.
When the letters started coming for Harry she was disappointed that, out of the hundreds that came, not a single one was for her. She went outside when no one was looking and marched straight up to a tawny owl and handed them a piece of paper asking about her own letter. She told the owl to take it back to his owner because maybe they had just forgotten about her like many people were so apt to do. To her slight shock, the owl took the paper in its talons and flew off, just before Uncle Vernon dragged her back into the house, calling her a freak and fighting off the questions of neighbors.
She tried to sneak a letter for Harry when the mail came, quickly picking it up from the pile on the floor and rushing quietly to her closet (the very thing she thought Harry should have done when he received the first letter, but then she always had been sneakier than her brother). Unfortunately for her, it was one of those rare days when Dudley was late for breakfast and he caught her on the stairs, hurriedly pushing something into the back pocket of her jeans.
"Dad! Dad! She's got a letter!" He called as she tried to push past him but to no avail. He was simply too big.
Her uncle came thundering from the kitchen and halfway up the stairs, trapping Violet between the two large males. She quit trying to struggle past Dudley and briefly considered jumping over the railing (she could make it, they were too slow for her, but she had no idea where Petunia was and she wasn't about to escape from the dunderheads only to run straight into the one with a bit of intelligence) before giving up and handing the letter over to her uncle.
When Harry was moved into Dudley's second bedroom she had hoped they would share. She and Harry tried to bargain; they would be really quiet, they wouldn't cause trouble, they would forget about the letters. But nothing would sway them and to make sure they were a good enough distance apart, Violet was moved into his old cupboard.
Violet actually enjoyed it when they moved to the house on the rock. She liked the smell of the ocean and the cool spray, even if it was cold already, and the fact that Dudley was miserable.
She was still awake when the giant man broke down the door. She sat up quickly, startled, but oddly enough the fear faded and she wasn't that afraid of the huge person in the doorway.
She listened to him tell Harry that he was a wizard. It came as a surprise to Harry, but Violet found that it explained a lot, and she hoped that she was one too. But before she had time to ask, the man spoke about their parents.
She sat very still, listening carefully as he explained that they, Lily and James Potter, had been murdered by someone named Voldemort, who had been on the rise to power. She had gasped when he said that Voldemort had tried to kill Harry when he was only two years old. She wanted to reach out to Harry and hug him but she was trapped to her seat on the sofa, afraid to move lest she miss some of the story.
For some unknown reason, Harry had survived and Voldemort vanished, making Harry a hero before he knew what a hero was.
Her eyes widened. Her brother was famous; her small, quiet, shy older brother was the most famous person in a world he had never been in.
She did ask if she could come when the man was going to take Harry to buy his school supplies, but the man said it wasn't a good idea. He had been sent to pick up Harry and only Harry. So she and Harry hugged goodbye and she was left to stew over being forgotten again.
When he came back he tried to show her all that he had gotten in what he called Diagon Alley but Uncle Vernon had locked it all in the closet she used to live in the moment he returned. Her relatives worked harder to keep the two siblings apart, hoping to prevent Violet from getting any ideas about being magical. Harry was set to work outside and Violet was given hours and hours of housework.
When she did manage to see her brother, when their tasks allowed them to cross paths or they "forgot" to tell their uncle and aunt they had finished a chore, they talked about what life might be like at a school for witches and wizards. He worried that he wouldn't fit in, that he would be too far behind because he never knew he was magical, that the bullies there would be even worse because they had the ability to turn him into a toad.
"You're famous there!" she had said, patting him consolingly on the shoulder as they stood by the trashcans in the side yard. He was supposed to be taking a bin to the driveway so it could be picked up the next morning, and she was supposed to be taking the trash from the house to the bin outside.
"I'll bet no one messes with you. I'll bet everyone loves you and the teachers don't make you do any work and you never get in trouble or have to clean or anything. From what that huge man said, you were their savior!"
He smiled at her, thinking about his new life far away from his abusive aunt and uncle where people didn't know him as the freaky kid who always had weird things happening to him, and then frowned slightly, a crease forming in his brow.
"I wish you could come with me, Vi."
She looked at him hopefully, elbows resting on the lid of the bin. "Can't I? I promise I won't get in the way. I'll be good, quieter than I am here!"
He shook his head sadly. "I asked and I told him all that but Hagrid said you had to be eleven to go to Hogwarts, no exceptions."
Her face fell and so did she, her elbow slipping and sending the lid crashing to the ground. Both she and Harry stared at it, holding their breath in the hope that the sound had gone unnoticed. It hadn't.
"Violet! What is taking so long?" Her aunt screeched from the kitchen. "You had better not be talking to the boy! I told you you're not allowed to do anything other than the chores I give you until you are done!"
Harry hurriedly picked up the lid and replaced it, sending Violet an apologetic look before scurrying off in the direction of their uncle's booming voice.
"GET OVER HERE BOY! YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED—"
Violet blocked him out and rushed back into the kitchen where Aunt Petunia waited with a bottle of cleanser and a handful of rags.
Her tenth birthday was much like all the other ones she had; the Dursleys treated it as if it were a normal August 4th, just another day of the year, except at breakfast when they handed her a box of pens. Harry on the other hand actually put some effort into his gift, having acquired a large amount of money in the Wizarding World. She loved the collection of unicorn figurines he bought her that he had somehow managed to keep away from his uncle's eyes and out of the closet where every other magical item he owned was. To her delight the unicorns could move on their own and when she set them on the shelf in her cupboard they galloped around, neighing and nuzzling her fingers when she reached down to pet their porcelain heads.
She wasn't allowed to see him off at the train station. It was decided that for her own welfare it was best she stay home, as to not anger her relatives and face a week in the cupboard with no food. So she hugged him goodbye in the entry way of the Number 4 Privet Drive, holding him tightly and refusing to cry because she never gave in to tears. He told her he would write everyday but he would send them in a package at the end of the month because the Dursleys wouldn't like seeing an owl every day. He told her to be careful and quiet and not do anything that would anger them because now he wouldn't be there to divide their abusive attentions and to tell him if it ever became too much and he would do everything he could to get her entrance into Hogwarts, even if it required him to get on his hands and knees and beg the headmaster or to eat something nasty.
She held onto him until Uncle Vernon pulled him away, quite carefully for him as he was somewhat afraid of his nephew although he would never admit it. She watched as they got into the car and drove off, keeping her eyes on the car until it turned and she couldn't see it anymore. Aunt Petunia immediately set her to work dusting the already spotless living room.
The year without Harry began much the same as every other day of her life. She was made to do chores all day, had to let Dudley pick on her because if she beat him up again he might cry to his parents (she always thought it would be embarrassing for a boy to admit he got beat up by a girl a year younger than him, but apparently Dudley was secure enough in his boyhood that he could tell on her) and locked in her cupboard at night until her aunt decided to release her in the morning.
And then school started and everything began to get worse. Because Harry was gone, the Dursleys had invented the lie that he was sent to a school that reformed boys. It spread around quick enough, everyone glad that they had finally done something with that incorrigible boy. The other children at her school made fun of her, and him, and said they were all better off without him and they hoped that the people at the school beat him every day and a million other things that all blended because she didn't spend much time thinking about them.
Unfortunately for the other children, and for Violet, she did spend a lot of time defending her brother. Her first week back she got into so many fights that she was suspended for the next two weeks. Violet was satisfied, having sent seven kids to the infirmary in only one day when they had tried to start a fight with her, and three of them were older. The Dursleys, however, were not happy, and for the next two weeks she had to clean every room in the house twice a day and was only allowed to eat dinner if she met Aunt Petunia's standards.
When she was allowed back at school, she learned that the other students had been warned by their parents. They were not to go near her, not even to make fun or start a fight. She rather enjoyed the feeling that others were afraid of her, snapping her teeth a student if they stared too long and silently laughing to herself when they quickly averted their eyes.
She spent her time alone in the sandbox, making castles and various other structures. When it rained, as it did often, she would venture to the library, picking up any book that she fancied and diving in. She loved adventure stories the most, staying away from the love stories so many other girls her age enjoyed. She imagined herself as the hero, climbing mountains or scaling trees in the middle of a jungle. Solving riddles and puzzles only to set off a trap and have to run and fight her way out.
Thus began her life as the invisible girl.
She was ignored at school by teachers and students alike. No one spoke to her in the streets as she walked home after school. Even the Dursleys began to ignore her, aside from the list of chores she received every day and the locking of her cupboard every night. She wondered if, now that Harry wasn't here, they even cared what she did. Apparently it just wasn't the same, abusing her in place of him.
The first package of letters she received from Harry contained thirty letters, one for every day, just as he promised. The owl showed up on the doorstep as she was beating the dust out of the welcome mat, and refused to leave until she had snuck into the kitchen and brought back a piece of bacon leftover from breakfast.
His letters spoke of an extraordinary castle, with a huge dining hall that had a ceiling bewitched to look like the sky outside. There were ghosts that traveled throughout the school, and even a poltergeist named Peeves that caused trouble to no end. He wrote about his classes and how the first time he was late to one, he arrived to see that the teacher wasn't there; feeling relieved, he sat at his desk only for the cat on the teacher's desk to turn into his professor! He got a week's worth of detention, but it was worth it to see that particular piece of magic.
He had made some friends as well. A tall, red headed boy named Ron who had a lot of siblings and was very funny. He liked to play Wizard's chess, a game vastly different from its muggle (non-magic people, he explained) counterpart in that the pieces actually moved and talked on their own!
There was also a rather clumsy boy named Neville, and another named Seamus who had a bad habit of accidentally blowing things up. And a know-it-all girl named Hermione, who he found a tad annoying but liked her overall.
He wrote that he wasn't too far behind; a lot of other students had no idea they could use magic until their letter arrived either. But, contrary to what she had said, the teachers still made him do work just like the other kids and no one gave him any special attention.
He ended every letter asking about her, how school was going and how were the Dursleys treating her, reminding her of his promise before he left.
When she had finished the last letter, she tucked them into a shoebox she had nicked from Aunt Petunia years ago to keep everything she deemed valuable in, and then snuck into Dudley's room to steal a couple pieces of paper and a pen. Returning to her cupboard she penned her reply, having to sneak back into Dudley's room halfway through for more paper. She mostly commented on how wonderful his school and new friends seemed, and how she wished she could be there and hopefully her letter would come before the next school year.
In a small group of paragraphs near the end, she crammed in the story of her suspension and her invisible life. She told him not to worry, because she was fine, and then she signed the bottom and folded the papers small enough to fit inside an envelope she took from Uncle Vernon's briefcase. She wandered back outside, wishing she hadn't sent the owl off because now how was she supposed to send the letter? But it reappeared almost instantly on the doorstep and she put the envelope in its talons and patted it on the head before it took off.
By the time Christmas rolled around, Violet wished more than ever that she could go to Hogwarts. She had dreams of chasing an elusive golden ball around a field while flying on a broom. She imagined herself standing up to a ten foot mountain troll and making a potion that put her to sleep but fooled everyone into thinking she was dead. She wanted to eat the Hogwarts feasts instead of the piece of bread and cheese she got with the Dursleys.
She wanted to be a witch more than she had ever wanted anything.
For a present, she managed to sneak a letter and several Mars Bars into the parcel containing the fifty pence piece her aunt and uncle were sending to Harry. It was all she had money for, and she didn't know what sort of odd candy they had in the Wizarding World, but Mars Bars were his favorite.
He sent her a small collection of chocolate frog cards, the ones he had doubles of. Her favorite was the one of a man named Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts. He looked grandfatherly and had twinkling blue eyes and had worked with dragon blood!
She experienced a shock when she put her cards down to go to the bathroom and when she came back, the people on the cards were gone! She stared at them, wondering what on earth had happened, and then put them away, chalking it up to something magical that she didn't understand.
She had no idea anything was wrong with Harry, though he was sending less and less letters; his last package had only contained fifteen, but she assumed he was busy with his classes and all the wonderful things at Hogwarts. She didn't know about Nicolas Flamel or a professor that tried to kill him or a three headed dog or a mirror that showed their parents or the sorcerer's stone.
She continued with her life not knowing the sort of danger her brother was in and it was probably better this way. Had she known, there was a good chance she would kidnap an owl or run about the streets telling everyone about Hogwarts, just so someone from the Wizarding World would come get her and she could demand they take her to Hogwarts where she could defend her brother.
But she didn't know and so she didn't make up any crazy schemes to get into Hogwarts. Instead she found ways to annoy Dudley without getting into any trouble. It consisted of one thing and one thing only: move the object he was using when he wasn't looking.
She was quite adept at it, being small and quiet and sneaky. When he set his fork down to take a drink of his orange juice at breakfast as she was walking past him to set the bacon on the table, she would grab it and put it down by Uncle Vernon while he read his paper. Dudley would then yell at his father, who could not understand how the fork had moved, and by the time this happened Violet was well out of the room and therefore out of blaming distance.
She did this whenever she could: when he was too engrossed in a television show she would move the remote, causing more shouted complaints that it had disappeared when a commercial finally came around and he wanted to change the channel; the occasional times he did his homework, setting down his pencil to take a long snack break, she didn't just move the pencil, she took it altogether. Eventually, she had enough pencils on the shelf of her cupboard to fill three pencil boxes, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were growing tired of having to buy a new package every other day for their son.
The fun in this only lasted so long, though she continued to do it, and she found herself wishing Harry would come home soon, that the next three months would fly by and he would be back and she would have someone to talk to again.
In May, Harry only sent ten letters, and in June, he didn't send any. Violet was disappointed, but at least he would be home soon.
She was allowed to go to the train station this time, if only because her aunt and uncle didn't want to leave her home alone. Who knew what she would do to the house while they were gone? They had become slightly afraid of her in the recent months, with the promise of Harry's return soon to be fulfilled, and had begun to almost walk on eggshells around her, not wanting to anger or upset her. They didn't need her to tell Harry that they had mistreated her in anyway. They left her alone, not even making her do any chores, and were planning on adding another room to the house. She would share with Harry for the time being.
Harry appeared on the platform with two other children his age. She assumed the red headed boy was Ron and the bushy haired girl was Hermione. She ran across the platform, nearly tackling him in a hug and squeezing him. He smiled and introduced her to his friends before Uncle Vernon called them. They turned to see him surrounded by a family of red heads, looking very uncomfortable and annoyed. Ron blushed slightly, shaking his head, and Violet guessed that was his family—the matching red hair confirmed it.
"They treated you all right, Vi?" Harry asked as they walked to their relatives.
She nodded, laughing. "They've been afraid of me for the last few months. Don't want me to tell on them to my big brother."
He laughed too. "They'll be afraid of you too, when you get your letter."
"D'you think I'll get one, Harry?" Her voice was tinged with worry. She had done nothing for the last year but hope that she would get her Hogwarts acceptance letter.
"Of course you will," he said, smiling down at her. He had grown a bit over the year, she noticed, and he wasn't as thin as he was before he left. His clothes actually fit.
They went home and she helped him unpack his clothes, barely finishing before Uncle Vernon was in the room and taking his trunk, still filled with his magical possessions, including his wand (an object that Violet had been eager to see) and locking it in the cupboard under the stairs. She had already moved her things into the bedroom she was to share with Harry; neither of their possessions took up much room, although Harry's stock was considerably larger than when he left.
He let her feed his owl, who was to share the room with them. She liked Hedwig; she seemed to be smarter than most animals, and she took a liking to Violet immediately, remembering her from all the times she had taken letters between the two siblings.
"You didn't write me this month," Violet said, still petting Hedwig. Though he had only been gone for two weeks of June, she thought he might have written because his May package came in the third week rather than the fourth.
"I'm sorry, Vi. There was a lot going on, with final exams and other things. I didn't have much time." He was laying on the bed, and he sounded sad. Violet supposed she would be sad too if she had spent a year away from the Dursleys and had to come back.
But his answer saddened her as well. He didn't have time for her, he had forgotten about her while in his last month of school. She had become the invisible girl to him, too, and she felt a crack form in their relationship. She understood that other things were important; she didn't expect to be the most important thing to him. But it still hurt. He was her brother, he wasn't supposed to forget about her.
And even though he told her about the events of his last month later in the summer, the crack never healed. It grew bigger and bigger as the summer went on and Harry became increasingly upset that his friends didn't write him. He and Violet didn't have as much in common anymore, having spent a year apart, and a wedge appeared in the crack, driving it further and further apart until they didn't have the same closeness they had before, and the Dursleys didn't have to work to keep them separated.
