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 Slytherin 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.
Imogen 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 on the same private gated estate home, the vast greyish house full of square lines and big windows, the vast, grand English garden that was conventional but not pleasant and sunshiny enough to be nauseating. It crept across the reddish-brown front door with its intricate glass paneling and its bronze number four. It crept through the big window, through the long silk curtains, and into the living room, which was called a sitting room and had a cozy, sun-room sort of feel to it, with lots of little tables and flowered armchairs for holding tea.
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 computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother.
There were little hints here and there of a small, dark-haired girl, but not enough to be noticeable. She was the perfect little daughter in a formal family dinner party portrait on one wall, but she didn't exist in many other places. Mostly, where she did exist, she was playing with Dudley. It was obvious to anyone who truly looked that he was the only one in the family who really paid attention to her. They rode bikes and played games together, but no one else cared.
Not that most people truly looked.
The small, dark-haired girl was Imogen Potter, the Dursleys' niece, and she was asleep at the moment but not for long. Her Aunt Petunia was awake and she announced it to the world with an unholy, banshee-like shriek.
"Up! Get up! Now!"
Imogen woke with a start. Her aunt rapped on the door again.
"Up!" she screeched.
Imogen grabbed whatever was nearest her and chucked it as hard as she could at the door. "I'm getting up!" she screamed back.
"Scream at me like that again and I'll have you make all of breakfast!"
"I was going to have to do that anyway! AAAHHH -!"
"Oh, you awful little -!" Aunt Petunia huffed, but she stalked away, her heels clacking. Imogen heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. Imogen smirked at her aunt's unseeable retreating figure, triumphant and rather darkly amused. Then she sighed and sat slowly upright, the more usual dread settling onto her features. She 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. "You are making all of breakfast, and I want you to hurry up so you can look after things," she said brusquely.
"Yes, ma'am," said Imogen, deadpan.
"And don't you dare let anything burn. I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."
Imogen rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to be physically ill. "Kay," she said without much enthusiasm. Prince Dudley was turning eleven today.
At last, her aunt left, heels clacking away up the stairs.
Imogen 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. Imogen was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them and that was where she slept. She'd been tragically orphaned at the grand old age of one, so an evil aunt and uncle had taken her in, to the cupboard she went, and from there the cliche didn't really get much better.
But Dudley did pull his weight for her in certain areas. The only reason she had school friends, hobbies, nice things and clothes - it was all him. God knew it wasn't her strict, repressive, chore-heavy aunt and uncle. They didn't get her shit. But Dudley… well he was a spoiled brat with a big gang who loved getting into fights in school, but she was his smaller sister so she got special treatment and that was fine with her. Since they were in the same class, Dudley saved her from bullies in school, made it so that she could have friends and hobbies, and he bought her things with the money given to him by his parents. When Dudley threw a tantrum, he got anything he wanted, and that often worked in Imogen's favor. Dudley was looked upon much more favorably as the son than Imogen was as the orphan niece.
It was mostly embarrassing to have to rely on Dudley or even her school-friends for everything. One day she'd promised herself she wouldn't have to do that anymore.
But for now, she did rely, and she got nice things. Her cupboard was a small, narrow place, slanting downward into a little shadowy corner, and it did have a bare light bulb but with the lights off it felt oddly… safe. Enclosed, dark, and safe. Little spiders skittering around in the darkness.
She had decorated it. It was covered in little bunches of dried flowers. She had handwritten in notes in fancy, black ink cursive writing taped to the mirror by her bed, sometimes decorated by a spider or two. Her bedclothes had a delicate, intricate pattern, one of her few expensive luxuries. With dim lighting, it was so nice and soft and quiet in there. Clothes littered the floor.
Most of her space was taken up by her two main hobbies - music and art. She had a fascination with tattoo art, several books about it, but right now as a child what she loved was dark line, ink, or charcoal drawings. They decorated the walls of her space. And she had an endless, endless music listening collection and giant, good-quality headphones. More Dudley allowances. He intervened for her yet again.
She got dressed there in her cupboard. As she'd said, her clothes were mostly bought by Dudley and her school friends, and she was allowed to make her own choices. Some important pieces to Imogen's wardrobe included high heels, ripped leggings, long coats with big black buttons, silver earrings, a ticking expensive wristwatch, shirts with lacy necklines, and monochrome fabrics with careful accents.
Imogen 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. So naturally, she had to twist that to her perfect effect.
Her hair was usually either tied up in a smooth top knot or, using her straightening iron, she made her hair long, straightened, and sleek all around her face. Her glasses were in a sly cat-eye shape.
And put all together, that completed her look. One outfit could be high heels, ripped leggings, a long coat with big black buttons, and silver earrings. She could put her hair up in a top knot. Another outfit could be a shimmery monochrome fabric shirt with careful accents like a lacy neckline, long sleek straight hair, and her ticking expensive wristwatch. Of course, with her ever-present cat-eye glasses always there.
There was one more physical detail to Imogen Potter: a thin scar on her forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. She was rather self conscious about it, she'd had it as long as she could remember, and the first question she could ever remember asking her Aunt Petunia was how she'd gotten it.
"In the car crash when your parents died," her Aunt Petunia had said, "and don't ask question."
Don't ask questions - the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.
When Imogen was all ready for the day, she went down the stairs and down the hall into the kitchen. It was one long room almost like a hall, and the Dursleys certainly thought of it that way. On one end, the white marble tiled and bold black accented kitchen, and on the other end the manufactured wood table. That table was today 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 Imogen was turning over the bacon. He looked her over, harrumphed disapprovingly, and heaved himself down into a seat at the kitchen table, ignoring her. Imogen bristled. She wasn't sure which she hated more - the disapproving harrumph or the refusal to help.
She amused herself by imagining Uncle Vernon as a kind of winded rhinoceros, massive, purple, and heaving, wearing a black formal suit like something out of a surrealist political comedy.
Aunt Petunia was his polar opposite - bony body, giraffe neck, horse face. She wore chiffons of hair and ugly dresses she thought were pretty. They were both so pretentious - gossipy, climbing, and pretentious.
Imogen was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley was a strange combination of huge and hulking and scowling, and chubby with smooth blond hair and blue eyes and a pink face, so that no one was sure whether to laugh at him or be shit-all terrified of him. He could wrestle and box in addition to his video game addiction, so after he beat a couple of people up everyone usually went for the terror. He was a nice guy to have on your side on the school playground.
He also let his mother dress him, but when they didn't harass her Imogen wasn't one to judge.
Imogen put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, smiling at Dudley as she put a slightly better made portion at his place. Dudley beamed back up at her. People who treated Imogen well got special privileges, and she did genuinely enjoy being kind to people. She sometimes saved smaller kids at school from Dudley's fists, and the younger children at St Grogory's had begun to see her as this weird, terrifying kind of savior. In her own straight-backed, quiet, proud and teasing way she could have quite a kind smile when she wanted to.
Dudley had begun 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. Imogen, 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. Imogen decided to help him out. "Thirty-seven," she spoke up, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon glared but she had a point to make. She set her two earrings on top of the pile. "Plus two," she added.
"Oh…" Dudley frowned at the earrings. "Thirty-nine!" he realized, brightening.
Imogen gave a secretive smile and put the earrings back in her ears.
"All right then," said Dudley, sitting down heavily and grabbing the nearest parcel. "That's fine."
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 Imogen and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote controlled aeroplane, sixteen new video games, 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 Imogen's direction.
Dudley brightened and he and Imogen shared a hopeful glance. 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 Imogen come along, every year Imogen was left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Imogen hated it there, mostly because it was hideously boring. The whole dark, smelly house was crawling with loudly meowing cats, there were weird stains everywhere like someone had been murdered against the sofa cushions, and Mrs Figg always sat Imogen right in the middle of the biggest stain and showed her every single cat photograph she had ever owned.
Dudley hadn't been able to swing letting Imogen come along this year, so she had been privately dreading Mrs Figg's house even more than she usually dreaded her life with the Dursleys.
"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Imogen as though she'd planned this.
"Well obviously," Imogen drawled, sitting back, "the solution is to find Mrs Figg some sort of medical specialist who can laser-heal broken bones that can be seen on short notice and take a plane halfway across the country to -"
"Never mind, I should never have looked at you," Aunt Petunia sighed, exasperated, and turned back to her husband.
"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.
"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the girl."
The Dursleys often spoke about Imogen 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. And there were three things Imogen secretly - very secretly, her guard and defenses always up - dreaded most in life: Being ignored, being laughed at, and true and total isolation.
"Don't ignore me!" she snapped, standing, losing it for a moment.
"Well I don't know what to do!" Aunt Petunia snapped back. "My friend Yvonne is on vacation in Majorca. I can't just foist you off on some other unsuspecting family with children for an entire day. I can't leave you home alone or - I don't know, you'd blow up the house or something!"
"Yeah, you got me, that was my secret plan all along."
"Shut up!"
It was a pity she wouldn't get to stay home alone. They let her sometimes, in good moods. She usually put on her giant headphones to a nice, specially selected mix of music and just drew for hours out in the living room.
"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," he yelled between huge, pretend sobs.
It should have been pathetic, but somehow it never was. Watching Dudley work his parents was like watching the finest work of art.
"Oh, my poor, sweet, sensitive little boy!" Aunt Petunia cried, flinging her arms around him. Dudley shot Imogen a secretive smile through the gap in his mother's arms. She couldn't help but smirk a little bit wryly back.
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 skinny little kid with stringy brown arms and a grin that hid true, clever viciousness. He, like Dudley, fought dirty to the end, usually holding people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.
Half an hour later, Imogen was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' dark leather seated, shiny car. She was smirking, shoving, and joking crassly around with the guys, surprising friendliness 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 Imogen aside into the living room.
"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Imogen's as she glared back, narrow-eyed, her nose slightly wrinkled in disgust, "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 Imogen softly. "I'm not that stupid." And at last Uncle Vernon broke her gaze and brushed past her with another harrumph.
He didn't believe her. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around Imogen, and it was just no good telling the Dursleys she didn't make them happen.
Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Imogen coming back from the barber's looking as though she hadn't been at all, equally tired of Uncle Vernon complaining about it, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut Imogen's hair so short she was almost bald, except for her bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had teased Imogen, Imogen had snapped back defensively, they'd had an argument, and Imogen had gone to bed in angry tears, secretly terrified of 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 had started buying her clothes, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force Imogen into a revolting secondhand grey dress. The harder she tried to pull it over Imogen's head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet but certainly wouldn't fit Imogen. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Imogen wasn't punished.
On the other hand, she'd gotten into terrible trouble over that bully incident at school two years ago. A big, older bully had cornered Imogen on the playground, and even as Dudley ran over he'd pushed her - and suddenly, crippling purple and green spots that looked like rot appeared all over his body, including his outstretched hands. A very angry letter had been sent home from Imogen's headmistress. Imogen wasn't sure how she'd done that, either, but all she'd been able to do was shout at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of her cupboard.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong. When she was joking around with Dudley and Piers, like when she was with her own friends or her own hobbies, everything was right in the world.
While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things. People at work, Imogen, the council, Imogen, the bank, and Imogen were just a few of his favorite subjects. Aunt Petunia, the good housewife, listened and Uncle Vernon, the big corporate man of the house, complained. This morning, it was motorcycles.
"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.
"Yes, that's what I think whenever I see motorcycle rider," Imogen announced sarcastically, breaking temporarily from her conversation with Dudley and Piers. "I think young hoodlum."
"Shut up!" Uncle Vernon snapped from the front.
Imogen subsided, smirking, as Dudley and Piers snickered. She'd decided not to mention the flying motorcycle dream; her poor uncle might have a coronary. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than her asking questions, it was her 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. She was only allowed art and music under Dudley protection.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families; they swarmed toward the big gate entrance with the carved animals surrounding it. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the ice cream van lady had looked disbelieving when Dudley started to break out his pocket book, Uncle Vernon reluctantly bought Imogen a small lemon sherbet twist ice cream.
Imogen had a very good morning. She, Dudley, and Piers enjoyed exploring the winding clay-like roads and little bridges, looking at all the enclosures of animals eagerly. Dudley and Piers were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, though Imogen could have gone for another few hours. They ate lunch in the zoo restaurant, which was full of fake plastic trees with swinging monkeys and jungle sounds from hidden speakers, and aside from Dudley having a tantrum that made Imogen roll her eyes 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 dark brickwork curved around in a sort of C shape, glowing glass tanks full of reptiles laid into the bricks. Behind the 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, mostly because they were boys. 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.
Imogen 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 she could visit.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Imogen's.
It winked.
Imogen 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 Imogen a look that said quite plainly:
"I get that all the time."
"I know," Imogen 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?" Imogen asked.
The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Imogen peered at it.
Boa Constrictor, Brazil.
"Was it nice there?"
The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Imogen 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 Imogen 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 his surrogate sister bluntly, and Imogen knew better than to cross that look without good reason, so she stepped neatly out of the way. Piers and Dudley leaned right up close to the glass, oohing and aahing.
The boa constrictor hissed irritably at them as it sank down, slowly, into its former torpor. Imogen felt genuine pity for it.
She thought she was in the clear. But then they were all piling back in Uncle Vernon's car in the zoo parking lot at the end of the day, chattering on. And Piers calmed down enough to say, "Imogen was talking to it, weren't you, Imogen?"
His eyes widened as she made the cut motion across her throat and mouthed glaring furiously, I will kill you.
But it was too late. Uncle Vernon had heard.
He waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting in on Imogen. But Dudley quickly stepped between them. "She did it for me!" he pleaded. "She was just talking to the snake, hoping it would move for me!"
Not for the first time, Imogen felt deep loyalty for her cousin.
"... Fine," Uncle Vernon bit out. "Tonight and tomorrow in the cupboard. No meals. She's let out the next morning."
"But Dad -!"
"It was going to be two weeks with one meal a day!" Uncle Vernon thundered in the darkened sophisticated lounge area, and his eyes flashed in Imogen's direction. "Go!"
Then he collapsed into an armchair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.
Imogen lay in her dark cupboard much later, staring at her watch. It was her most important, practical request from Dudley. She used it during cupboard punishments to figure out when the Dursleys would be in bed, then sneak out and steal food.
This was not any manifestation of Imogen's true nature. This was a survival mechanism. She would keep plastic bags of food from stealing nights underneath her bed during cupboard punishments.
She had other things like that. A bucket in the corner in case she needed to pee outside of her two allotted times outside each day. A light bulb that always worked so that she had light to draw and listen to music. Bug spray for the particularly nasty spiders. The worst was when they got into her hair at night.
Survival mechanisms.
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, Imogen had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take her away, had wandered countless streets just trying to get away from home, but it had changed nothing and nothing had never happened; 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 old man in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Imogen furiously if she knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without 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 taken 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 Imogen tried to get a closer look.
