Author's Notes: This is a rewrite of a story I had on Ao3 for a while, but never finished. Originally Hermione, Luna, and Ginny were all Harry's adopted sisters together, but that became too confusing and complicated and logistically impossible and I wanted to focus more on each girl individually. So I plan on writing three stories: one for Ginny, one for Hermione, and one for Luna. Each girl will be Harry's adopted sister. Each girl will be paired with Tom Riddle, in different ways. Obviously, the story for Ginny is first.
Euterpe is a muse of music. The significance of this will become more apparent later. In my head, each girl's story will be titled after a muse.
I know Rowling does accents for certain characters. I no do them accents. All my characters speak plain English.
All of the changes for this story should become apparent over time. Some deviate from Word of God canon. That's why it's called fanfiction.
1.
"We can't afford two more children!"
The words burst out of Molly Weasley's mouth before she could stop them. She'd been having a rousing late-night argument with her husband about money - the usual topic - and it had slipped out before she could control herself. Arthur's eyes widened behind his glasses.
"We can't," Molly admitted, panting, and it pained her even to say it; it hurt her pride. But it had to be said. Arthur worked at the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office at the Ministry during the day, which offered a meager amount of money per week, while Molly raised their five growing boys at home. She was the one who did the cooking and cleaning; she kept track of all the money. "It's been a bad year for us, Arthur. And I'm pregnant with twins again. Fraternal ones this time, a boy and a girl." She gestured to her swelling belly. Seven children had permanently changed Molly's already curvy figure and she was keenly aware of it. "And we have this chaotic, lopsided damn house and no money and five sons already. We might be able to afford one more child," she admitted. "But not two."
She choked on the last words; tears filled her eyes and she looked away, scowling. Her eyes ran over the cluttered, cramped living room - the sewing doing itself in the corner, the dishes washing themselves in the sink, the radio, the eccentric wooden clocks, the worn old furniture, the mirror that occasionally issued statements, the scrubbed wood kitchen table. The house was very tall and tilted oddly to the side, held up by magic, with four or five chimneys; even as she watched, she heard the ghoul make a clanking sound in the attic. The house had once been a stone pigpen that had just kept being built on and built on in multiple stories chaotically; the back garden was full of gnomes. The most it could boast was that it had a wide back field and was near a town in Devon. No, she thought, The Burrow was no place for a beautiful little girl to live.
Arthur stood and went over to look into Molly's face, putting his hands on her shoulders. His red hair was balding now, but to her he was still the same handsome, eccentric, Muggle-obsessed boy she'd met in school. His blue eyes were worried. "We'll make it through, Molly," he said. "We always do."
Molly Weasley wouldn't have been able to make the statement. But Molly Weasley had once been a curvy, determined brown-eyed brunette named Molly Prewett, and Molly Prewett was a Pureblood from a good family who had known how to do what she had to do.
She took a deep breath. "I think we should give one of them up for adoption." Her voice barely trembled. "Otherwise we risk the others not having enough to eat." Arthur sat down heavily, paling. "It's been a bad year, Arthur," she repeated. "Very bad."
"All the funds are going to that damn war." Arthur clenched his hands, looking away, glaring. Then suddenly he hit the wall with a fist and made a swearing noise, for once the angry one. "It's my fault," he said, flushing. "I don't provide enough -"
"Never mind whose fault it is; it is what needs to be done," said Molly firmly. "I… I was thinking of giving up the girl," she admitted, ashamed. Arthur nodded absently, lost in his own thoughts. "We shouldn't tell the children they have a sister."
Everyone would think Molly had given up the girl because she was used to boys. It was far from the truth. Molly favored the little girl. She'd wanted her more than anything. And if she couldn't raise her and provide for her, Molly wanted her to have the best life possible.
Lily Potter stood over her baby son's crib, looking down into his face, her expression unusually dim.
"What is it?" James asked, coming into the room behind her.
"I've been thinking about the prophecy," Lily admitted.
"Lils," said James, pained, "it might not even be our son -"
"But if it is our son. The prophecy says he has to be marked, right? And the only way that monster is getting to my baby is over my cold, dead body. If the prophecy comes to pass, we're both going to die, James," said Lily, turning to look up at him, long crimson hair falling away from her face to reveal bright, almond-shaped green eyes.
"My friends would never betray us -" James insisted, hazel eyes fierce behind his spectacles.
"I want him to have someone there in case we can't be there for him," said Lily.
James sighed and ran a hand through his messy black hair, looking away. "And how are we going to do that?" he asked. "Have another child?"
"No," said Lily. "That will take too long and I don't know how much time we have. I want to adopt."
James nodded. "Someone Harry's age, I take it?" he asked, almost rhetorically.
"Yes. I've been thinking a girl," Lily admitted. "I've always wanted a daughter."
They looked around the Godric's Hollow cottage - the coastal colors and cream-colored furniture, the fancy little decorations brought over from Potter Manor. It gave the cramped, tiny space a touch of elegance that was badly needed. Ivy faced the cottage front.
"We'd just have the room for one more child," said James. "And obviously, supposing we survive, once the war is over we'll have the whole run of the manor." The Potters were quite a wealthy family, Pureblood until James had married the Muggleborn Lily.
"We can adopt a witch from an all-wizard family, if that's what you'd like," said Lily. "If it would make things easier from a Potter standpoint."
"Oh, you know I don't give a fuck," said James casually.
"Not in front of the baby!" Lily scolded him, and James grinned. There was a pause; they sobered. "Let's look for someone," said Lily at last. "Someone who needs our help."
Dumbledore contacted the organization for them. The way Magic of Love, the wizarding adoption agency, worked was that the family looking for a child sent out a letter of introduction and a list of requirements, as did the biological family if one was available. If the lists of requirements checked up with each other, each family's letter of introduction was sent to the opposing family.
Everything was quite anonymous. Neither family knew the name of the other. All adoptions were closed.
The Potters asked for a Pureblood family - though the family did not have to be Dark or highly respected. They asked for a family or a child who was badly in need of help, and they asked for an infant girl, newborn or soon to be born. She had to be the same age within a year as their newborn son.
The Weasleys asked for a wealthy wizarding family, though the family did not have to be Pureblood and in fact it would be preferred if they were not (Arthur's addendum). The family could not be known to have Dark leanings, and did not have to be highly respected. The family already had to have at least one other child.
The letters of introduction were sent out; each liked the sound of the other. The Weasleys chose the Potters and the Potters chose the Weasleys, though neither of them knew it.
The Weasleys liked the description of the Potters as "a loving Halfblood wizarding family with a son looking for his sister. We have plenty of money and everything we need to care for a second child."
The Potters, meanwhile, sympathized with the Weasleys - that they "have several children, and while we love them all dearly, we cannot financially care for another child." That had been hard to write - very hard.
And so the adoption was made privately and the minute Ginevra was born, on August eleventh, she was sent to the Potters' cottage in Godric's Hollow through Dumbledore. No one ever knew the Weasleys had given up a seventh child. No one ever knew the Potters' daughter was adopted.
It was a secret well kept to all but whom they were closest to.
Mrs Weasley cried the day in St Mungo's that her son Ron was kept and her daughter Ginny was taken away.
The Potters received the baby girl that evening. "Her name is Ginny," Dumbledore said, standing in the front doorway, the West Country landscape beyond the small village spread out behind him in the blackness.
"Full name or nickname?" said Lily, looking up.
"Nickname," said Dumbledore. "Her full name is Ginevra."
Molly had chosen to name her daughter after Guinevere, from the King Arthur tales. Her favorite son, Percy, an obedient, intelligent boy who often took the lead with his brothers and had aspiring ambitions, had also been named Percival. It was a sign of affection, the only sign she could allow herself.
Lily took her newborn daughter in her arms and smiled. "I think I prefer Ginevra," she said. "It's prettier. Hello, Ginevra," she cooed into the baby girl's face.
A runic circle had been drawn onto the Potters' living room floor in Godric's Hollow. All the furniture had been moved out of the way. Lily held baby Harry in her arms, standing off to the side; James stood beside her, his arm around her, and Sirius Black, Ginevra's new godfather, stood beside him. All were wearing formal black robes.
Baby Ginevra lay on a gold altar, atop lacy cream-colored sheets, in the north side of the circle. A silver-bearded, balding Wiccan priest in official blue robes stood before the altar.
"With this blood, I make you of the parents this blood is from," he said. He injected a small vial of James's blood into Ginevra's arm, and a small vial of Lily's blood into Ginevra's arm. Then he waved his wand. The circle glowed gold, the prick magically healed, and Ginevra began wailing.
Outwardly, she was unchanged. But inwardly, she had changed irrevocably.
"I now pronounce you Ginevra Potter," said the priest loudly over her cries. "May it be so." He stepped back and the golden light faded.
Lily and James hurried forward. James took Ginevra into his arms. She was laid on the sofa beside her brother, Harry.
"We have so much to do," said Lily busily. "We have to take her through the village and the countryside around it. We have to set up a trust fund for her that money trickles into each year, we have to name her our heiress, we have to name Sirius her godfather in our will. We have to furnish her a beautiful bedroom. We have to -"
"We'll get there," said James in amusement, putting a hand on Lily's shoulder. "One thing at a time."
"Next thing we know, you'll be the Weasleys," said Sirius dryly, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall, dark hair falling into his handsome eyes in a way many women found attractive. "Adopting children left and right."
"No, thank you," said James flatly, and Lily and Sirius laughed. The crying had faded now. Ginevra and Harry were blinking sleepily in the warm, friendly quiet.
"Oh, I just have so much love to offer them," said Lily, her heart swelling. "I can't wait to get started!"
When Lord Voldemort peered into the cottage's sitting room that night, he saw two children, not one. Naturally he had been informed; the Potters had adopted an infant girl. No orphanage for this one, no; instead a beautiful, caring home. She would have to die, of course, the children had to die. It seemed more prudent that way. Lord Voldemort was prudent above all else; killing that Muggle child in the street would have caused an unnecessary ruckus, while killing the children in here would safeguard his own rise to power.
The father was making puffs of colored smoke erupt from the end of his wand for the amusement of the small children below him. The pale black-haired boy with green eyes was in blue pajamas, the freckled brown-eyed girl with short reddish-gold hair was in an expensive eggshell-white nightgown. They were both giggling and laughing, trying to catch the puffs of colored smoke, clenching hands around elusive mist.
A door opened and the mother entered, saying words Lord Voldemort could not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. She picked up the girl and the father picked up the boy, both of them throwing their wands down in order to do so. The mother's was on a table, the father's on the living room sofa. They began carrying the children toward what appeared to be the staircase, past their strollers, and to their beds.
The front gate creaked a little. A wand came out. The front door was blasted off its hinges. James gave Harry to his mother and came sprinting into the hall, wandless.
"Lily, take the children and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
Without a wand? Voldemort laughed as he cast the Killing Curse. Green light lit the hall, and in mid-charge James Potter fell limply to the ground, lifeless.
Lily Potter reached Harry's room, and began screaming as she realized she was trapped on the floor above with no wand. Voldemort mounted the stairs, listening in amusement as the mother began to barricade herself inside one child's bedroom. She was the only one with nothing to fear. But even she was stupid. How naive, how foolish, to think safety lay in love, in one's friends. It was their friend who had betrayed them. They had put their weapons down, which could not be allowed, not even for a moment, and it would destroy their family.
He grabbed the doorknob and twisted it, forcing - the doorknob jiggled and jiggled - then at last Lily screamed as the door was shoved open, only the barricade holding it back. With another wand wave the boxes and chair leaning against the door were thrown away, the door forced wide. The children were standing there in the crib. The mother stood in front of the crib, her arms thrown wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding her children she hoped to be chosen herself.
"Not my children, not my children, please not my children!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside now."
"Not my children, please no, take me, kill me instead -"
"This is my last warning -"
"Not my children! Please… have mercy… have mercy… Not my children! Not my children! Please - I'll do anything - I'll do whatever you want - just spare my children's lives - Please - Please -" She was crying. The stupid woman was crying.
He did not understand this irrational need to protect another person at the threat of one's own life. It was ridiculous.
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
But Lily Potter would not stand aside. Both the children were crying by now; the small girl had taken the cue from her mother and started them both going. He never had been able to stomach the small ones whining in the orphanage. Perhaps that was why he cast the Killing Curse. Perhaps it was all of it.
The green light flashed and Lily Potter dropped dead like her husband.
And there were the crying children. If he cast a strong enough curse, which of course he could, he could kill them both in one go. Yes. It was best that way. He pointed the wand, and to his amusement the children quieted, as if understanding their oncoming destruction; the boy stood in front of the girl, who hid behind his shoulder, both of them looking hesitantly through the black hood of his cloak and up into his face. The Muggle boy had been frightened of it, perhaps they were as well.
He paused, watching them closely. He wanted to see it, the destruction of this one inexplicable threat. The boy had been prophesied to destroy him, but the minute this girl had become Harry Potter's sister she had become just as deadly as her brother. Loyalty, he had learned from his Pureblood followers, was typically familial unless it was trumped by some other value. This girl could be the reason the boy was strong enough to be a threat in the first place.
"Avada Kedavra!"
It all happened in quick succession. The curse hit the boy's forehead - the girl screamed - and then Lord Voldemort saw a solid wall of magic. Not just from one. But from both of them. Glowing gold, it shoved the spell back. Green light filled his vision and Lord Voldemort felt the most horrible pain and the most stark, utter terror he had ever experienced.
And a few moments later, there was no Lord Voldemort at all. There was a fiery hole blasted in the roof of the cottage and two screaming, living children. But one other thing remained, unseen by everyone; it circled around the room, until it entered the only thing it could - the lightning bolt shaped cut on the forehead of Harry Potter.
Both children were protected from Lord Voldemort by blood and love. Both were considered threats from henceforth onward. But only one was marked by scar and prophecy.
The Potter children were now the wealthiest wizarding orphans in the country.
The next day, Vernon Dursley was on his way past a group of robed weirdos, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, and he caught a few words of what they were saying.
"The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard -"
"Yes, their children - the girl and the boy -"
"Twins, perhaps?"
"No one knows for sure. No one's sure of their names either. Perhaps they're simply close in age?"
"Well, I heard that -"
Mr Dursley stopped in his tracks, suddenly consumed with overriding fear. The Potters were the very antithesis of the Dursleys. Eccentric, strange, magical, and imaginative, the Dursleys had never so much as had them over for dinner, despite being related to them. Vernon and Petunia had no desire to speak with James and Lily, and in any case, they didn't want Dudley mixing with such ratty, strange children as they were sure Ginevra and Harry Potter must be. The Potter girl had been adopted, on top of everything else, an institution that was certainly not to be trusted.
Could people know? Could the Dursleys have been found out as being related to such… strangeness?
Vernon had to tell himself not to panic, not to call his wife, for the rest of the day. There was no evidence besides that one overhead conversation, and… and Potter wasn't such an unusual name, was it? He was sure there were lots of people with a son and daughter of the same age called Potter.
But when he went to bed, he was still wondering. Was it their Potters? Was it really? He wasn't worried about them, far from it.
Mr Dursley was worried that this would affect him and his family. Good riddance to his relatives.
It was midnight on a darkened Muggle suburban street called Privet Drive. Minerva McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore, both in robes, were sitting on a low garden wall surrounded by neat hedgerows in the quiet, in front of number four, the Dursleys' house, a big white square box of a thing paid for by Vernon's corporation.
Dumbledore had just finished confirming for McGonagall that the Potter couple was dead. She had taught them in school, and she was severely shaken.
"That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potters' son and daughter," said McGonagall, her voice shaking. "But - he couldn't. He couldn't kill those small children. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill the Potter children, Voldemort's power somehow broke - and that's why he's gone."
Dumbledore nodded glumly.
"It's - it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done - all the people he's killed - he couldn't kill a couple of children? It's just astounding… of all the things to stop him… but how in the name of heaven did the Potter children survive?"
"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know."
"Aren't the girl and the boy of the same age?"
"That is correct. The girl, Ginevra, was adopted, and became related by blood to Lily and James in a blood ritual. The boy, Harry, is the Potters' biological son. I would appreciate you keeping the adoption quiet, as well as their names. As little information should be known as possible. That's why I'm here," said Dumbledore seriously.
"What do you mean?" said McGonagall.
"I mean that the biological parents may demand their daughter back, and Harry needs all the help he can get," said Dumbledore. "The two of them will be sent here. Instead of growing up spoiled as targets of political assassination in our world, they will be raised anonymously in a Muggle world here far away from all magic. Their last remaining relatives, Lily's sister and her family the Dursleys, live in the house behind us."
"Albus. I've been watching them all day. They're vile people," said Minerva quietly. "And they'll never understand those two children, putting aside any resentment they might feel having children foisted off onto them with no compensation."
"I know. The pros just outweigh the cons," Dumbledore admitted dully, staring straight ahead of himself and looking tired.
Shortly afterward, Hagrid arrived on his flying motorbike. He had two slings, one on his front and one on his back, one baby asleep in each sling.
"Young Sirius Black lent the bike to me. I've got them, sir," said Hagrid, swinging off his motorbike.
"No problems, were there?"
"No, sir. Sirius Black put up a bit of a fight, saying the children rightfully belonged to him. But I said Dumbledore's orders, and in the end he agreed. House was almost destroyed, but I got them out alright before the Muggles started swarming around. I've been driving all night and all day. They fell asleep just as we was flying over Bristol."
That answered Albus's question. He'd felt the wards around the Potter home drop, and had been wondering if the Ministry would be quick enough to interfere with the children's move into a new home. Apparently not. Even Sirius Black wasn't putting up a fight. Good.
The children would be safer here. The blood wards from Lily would protect their home as long as they lived with Lily's family. At least until they turned seventeen and could defend themselves.
Dumbledore took the children and laid them on the doorstep of number four, one bundle of blankets each, tucking a letter of explanation for the Dursleys inside Harry's blankets. Tears were shed, goodbyes were said, and then they all went separate ways.
Dumbledore stopped at the end of the street after he'd turned all the lights back on. He could just see the bundles of blankets on the step of number four. "Good luck, you two," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.
A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. The Potter children slept on, not knowing they were special, not knowing they were famous, not knowing there would be books written about them, not knowing every child in the wizarding world would grow up learning about the mysterious, disappearing Potter twins. They also did not know that they would be woken by Mrs Dursley's scream in a few hours' time as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor did they know that they would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by their cousin Dudley… They couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses amidst parties and saying in hushed voices, "To the Potters - the children who lived!"