Given

Tyene: I never pegged you as the raising a kid type.

Wanda: (defensively) I did babysitting...a few years ago...

Tyene: I never would have figured that out.

Wanda: (annoyed) What's that supposed to mean!? I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 2

I don't think I ever hated anyone as much as the Dursleys. And while most of it is rooted in the obvious reasons, I had more personal reasons rooted in prior experience.

In my first life, I was relatively happy. I had a family that loved me. I was safe and secure in a country not at war. I didn't have a goddamn scar on my forehead that might as well be a giant neon sign saying 'please make my life a living hell!'. I could do the things I wanted.

And you know what I had never felt? I had never been locked in a boot cupboard that was barely big enough for me, let alone me and my new baby brother. I had never been screamed at for things that weren't my fault. I had never been forced to do the cooking and the cleaning and all the chores while a cousin stomped around, finding new ways to make my life miserable.

If I could find the person/entity/whatever that put me in this second life, I would punch them in the face. And then hit them with a crowbar. Whoever it was, they had an incredibly warped sense of humour.

I don't think I would have felt this way if I didn't remember everything. But I did.

And believe me – going from having a loving family to a bunch of fatass tormentors is a bitter, bitter pill to swallow. If you were in my shoes, you'd be pissed off too.

My name – well, my name now – is Cassie Dorea Potter.

And in which lay my first, most obvious, problem.

I had zero illusions about the life of a Potter. To me, the life of a Potter meant the following things-

1 – being yanked around by a crazy manipulative bastard who chucks you headfirst into deadly situations and is cheerfully plotting your death.

2 – it means constantly being distrusted or hated for no good reason other then some asshole didn't manage to kill you when you were a baby.

3 – it meant being fate's chewtoy.

4 – It meant loosing people you loved. It meant loosing friends. It meant almost permanently living in fear for your life. It meant no childhood, little hope, and little happiness. It meant having to constantly fight to keep yourself safe from the day you first stepped into the world.

To put it mildly; I was not thrilled. I was pissed off, and I wasn't even sure who I was most angry at – the people inhabiting this world, the Dusleys or whoever decided to put me here. Not Dumbledore; though I was plenty pissed at him too – whoever put my spirit in this new body instead of letting me pass on.

-Given-

The very early years – the somewhat blurred moments of a two year old's memory – were the easiest moments. Children so small are easily susceptible to permanent damage, and I suppose Petunia did want us eventually returned to Mr Dumbledore in one piece. Maybe she was worried that if we had any permanent harm done to us, like brain damage from getting dropped down the stairs, loosing a limb or two or large burns, he would turn her into a donkey. So she and her husband endeavoured to ensure that our bodies received the bare minimum care to ensure physical health, so they didn't go around dropping us on our heads or hitting us with frying pans just yet. After all, that could quite possibly spell death and that would put them in a pretty pickle. They kept us safe from any severe harm.

Permanent damage – hah! I braved it better then Harry thanks to seventeen years of prior experience and perceptive, but it was far from being 'a little thinner and hungrier' then the average, happy and well adjusted child. The first day Harry was confined to the cupboard by himself, he was afraid of me. He cried and wouldn't let me touch him for several hours.

We also ate rarely. I can pinpoint the exact year we started getting less then a growing child needed – by the time I was four years old, Vernon decided that was old enough to survive on rabbit food for the sake of his son. I remember because on the night of my birthday, I was given three large carrot sticks for dinner. And that was it. Harry got two.

My stomach kept me up for half the night, rolling and burning like I had swallowed acid. The next morning, I found myself periodically dizzy and struggled to pay attention to my surroundings, which naturally pissed Vernon off more because he needed to tell me three times to get my chores down. In punishment, I had to miss lunch.

I would've pointed out his self-defeating logic if I hadn't been partially certain that he would have strangled me for backtalk. It wasn't as if that wasn't in his nature, either.

When I was five years old, I made a snide remark about a report from school regarding Dudley's behaviour. Vernon turned around and slapped me across the face, knocking me off my chair and onto the floor.

"You shut your mouth, girl! I won't be tolerating any sass from you!"

My head was reeling. I had never been struck like that before. Sure, I had taken karate classes when I was younger, but that was completely different. Everyone there was pulling their punches and the teachers weren't trying to hurt you.

The impact was different. My cheek was burning and my eyes welled up against my will. I scarcely heard Petunia demand I apologize to Dudley as I fought to process this. When she shouted it again, I lashed out without thinking.

"If he's so damn smart, what does he care what I think?"

Petunia slapped me this time. The skin on my cheek cracked. I gritted my teeth hard to keep myself from crying in pain.

My emotional state hadn't really reset itself to a young girl. Inside, I was still a teenaged girl with clinical depression and mid to high functioning autism. The combination made me bitter, seething and stubborn. I refused to give them any sort of satisfaction by making me cry.

I stared at them the whole time as I got up, turned around and 'apologized' to Dudley. It didn't sound sincere in my ears, but Vernon was satisfied. I left the room and crawled into the cupboard.

The space was small. So small. It was tiny and dark and spiders crawled along inches from my face. The whole enclosure stank – we were lucky if we were allowed to bathe twice a week and it stuck to the walls. There wasn't enough room inside for me and Harry to both lie down, so often I found myself sleeping sitting up against the wall with Harry curled up on my legs. I often woke with spiders nesting in my hair, and a few times we were joined by mice who bit our hands and nibbled holes in what few possessions we were allowed.

I hated the cupboard I hated Vernon and I just wanted to scream -

CRASH!

An explosion. So loud.

My head snapped up when I heard the shattering of glass, the whole house ringing with the force of it. Petunia and Dudley both screamed, and Harry bolted into the cupboard next to me a moment later snuggling into the protection of my embrace. Clutching my tiny brother against my chest, I stared out mess in the living room while my heart attempted to beat its way out of my chest.

Hastily I pulled the cupboard door closed as Vernon burst in, cricket bat in hand. Petunia appeared a moment later.

"What the devil just happened!? Pet, the windows! They're all broken!"

My breath hitched. It took a moment, but it hit me with the force of a train when Petunia, as seen through the tiny vents of the cupboard, went very white.

Accidental Magic. My accidental magic.

I was a witch.

-Given-

So, to say that I did not get along with my 'aunt' and 'uncle' was a bit of an understatement. After that event, the twosome where somewhat more wary around me. While it in now way encouraged them to give me a real dinner or cease using me as a servant, Vernon evidently wasn't in a hurry to have to buy three sets of replacement windows more often then he had to. Perhaps he was also worried that I could do worse if he hit me harder.

If it was just me, I would have done my absolute best to give them my worst. I had figured out, in my first attempt at life, that I could be a bitch when I was at my worst. With magic (it was hard to even think it at first, I was so conditioned to believe it impossible) at my disposal, while I couldn't use specific spells yet, I could probably add a delightful layer of distress to their 'normal' lifestyles. (as if locking your niece and nephew in a boot cupboard to sleep somehow constituted 'normal' behaviour)

But there wasn't just me to consider.

Harry Potter was my little brother – not by much, but that effectively made him my responsibility because do you think Petunia Dursley gives a damn if the kid gets wet or hasn't eaten? No, no she does not.

When he was three and four, around the time when our guardian's mistreatment began to escalate, Harry was timid and easily cowed. Dudley liked to pick on him, even though theoretically I was the better target due to being the 'weaker' sex. Even as a little kid, the tub of lard had a punch hard enough to leave bruises. As soon as he was old enough to do chores, Vernon was breathing down his neck shouting at him to get stuff done. No where was safe for the 'boy-who-lived'.

As a consequence, Harry was terrified of everyone and everything. He was a shy, introverted doormat.

So I took care of him. Little two year old me, from the very beginning.

Because what choice did I have?

Little Harry Potter had the most heartbreaking green eyes I had ever seen. I know they were his – our – mother's eyes. He looked just like he was described. Me? I was an inverted version of him – a girl who looked exactly like her mother except for her father's blue eyes. Long red hair (Petunia never took me to have it cut, because that would cost perfectly good money) vibrant pale skin, a tall and slender build. I didn't look anything like I used too, though I suppose that came with the territory.

Strange as it may seem, I actually think our appearances affected which adult hated us more. Petunia, I came to realize, despised my existence even more then Harry's – if there had been a choice of only taking care of one of us, she would have picked him in a moment. I had an inkling why, too. I was all but a reincarnation of Lily Evans, the sister who had been gifted with magic, the sister who had everything that Petunia had wanted.

Petunia had done everything she could to separate herself from Lily, envy and bitterness rotting her to her core. And yet just when she had formed her 'perfect' family away from all that strangeness, I was dropped on her doorstep, a living shadow and reminder of the sister she had perceived as being better loved than she.

And if you had met the woman for more then an hour, if she thought you weren't watching her and therefore putting out her best behaviour, there wasn't much of a 'perception' to it. Petunia needed to realize that being a needlessly self-interested bitch was a bit of a turn off for most people.

Of course, that would require that she and her husband pull their heads out of their asses long enough to gather a shred of empathy for the people around him.

Our clothing wasn't much different from the rest of our situation. Harry and I were both stuck wearing Dudley's cast offs – seriously, did Petunia hate her own child that much that she named him that? Maybe that woman just hates children in general.

That wouldn't surprise me.

-Given-

Like the rest of the Dursleys' stellar parenting, the chores weren't heaped on when we were very young. However, practically the moment we were walking easily on our own power, we might as well have been transported into the Cinderella fairytale.

Dishes, laundry, mopping, dusting, and vacuuming were chores usually defaulted to me. It was because I was the girl of the house, you see?

On top of everything else, Vernon was positively medieval in his misogynistic attitude towards me. I don't know if he hides this side of him from Petunia or if she had an equally low opinion of women in general.

At first, I would initially let a few things minor slide just out of spite, but Vernon seemed to realize I had a pressure point. Anything he felt I hadn't done sufficiently was handed off to Harry once he had done his chores, which usually included doing Dudley's homework and tending to the garden.

So I sucked up my ever increasing bitterness and hatred towards this family and did the cleaning better then average.

Something I noticed, however, was that the more upset I was the more prone to accidental magic I was. While the exploding windows remained my most fantastic display, it was far from my last – Dudley's beef sandwich turning to dirt, Petunia doing the splits and pulling a hamster, glasses exploding and car tires breaking tended to surround me on my worst days.

Vernon and Petunia valiantly tried to counter this by giving me less food – or taking a swing at me with the frying pan, whatever was closer at hand. They completely ignored the fact this did nothing to stop them – and they tended to happen more often after they did that. Thankfully, at least some of the bouts were attributed to bad weather, jackass teenagers or the likes.

Harry was having bursts of his own, but they tended to be fewer and further inbetween – likely because he didn't have the capacity to reach for more of his powers yet. However, his explosions tended to be more spectacular then mine.

One of Marge's visits involved Ripper getting transformed into a plush doll when he was harassing me once again. (That damned mutt). I don't know how he got turned back – I guess Figg must have noticed and called for a wizard to fix it.

Oh, Figg. What she mistook as my thinly disguised hatred was actually me fighting to suppress the desire to call her out on knowing that we were magical or just fucking doing something about the Dursleys, she lived right next to us how could she not know. Every time we went to her house was somewhat of a reprieve, but we still weren't allowed to enjoy ourselves.

Sometimes, I wished I could kill Vernon and Petunia. That I could bring myself to go into the kitchen late at night, grab the bread knife and end their lives.

But I wasn't a killer. Not then, not even for them.

So instead I brooded in the cupboard, letting all that rage fester until I couldn't bear it anymore.

-Given-

I knew what to expect around here, but reading about it was different from experiencing it.

The first swing of the frying pan shattered any illusion I might have possessed about these first years getting any easier. I was lucky I didn't get a concussion, but the blow knocked me out for several hours. When I came to, Petunia simply shoved some advil into my hands and shepherded me back into the cupboard.

Have I mentioned I'm claustrophobic?

I hated the cupboard. I hated everything about Privet Drive and its inhabitants.

The only thing I didn't hate was Harry. So instead, I got to stress over how badly the Dursleys treated him.

One Day After School

"I'm telling mummy!"

"Tell her, you miserable little shit!" I spat back, cradling Harry in my arms. The younger boy had a broken lip and was bleeding everywhere despite the cloth I was pressing against him. I was holding him upright in a bid to keep him from choking on the blood that was spilling down his face. The boy was sobbing and pressing himself against my chest; I could only pray that the school teacher who had seen me had called an ambulance. "Tell her! Get out of here before I strangle you!"

Dudley and two of his braindead friends, Piers and some other kid who's name I never bothered to remember, were standing in front of us. Dudley was sporting a black eye now, since I had punched him in the face. His two friends were similarly rattled; Piers had a bald spot on his head where hair had been yanked out while the other kid was missing a tooth.

I had just gotten out of math class when I first witnessed Harry hunting. Three large, fat boys against one skinny little kid who hadn't slept well the previous night. Harry had fallen and they were kicking him from all sides.

"You can't call me that!" Dudley blustered. "Mummy said-"

"I don't give a shit what your mummy thinks!" I snarled. "You hurt him, you vicious little brat!"

I felt something inside me surge, then suddenly Dudley and his friends were screaming – a rabid dog appeared out of nowhere and started chasing them. It looked like Ripper, which I suppose was my fault.

The dog had taken an instant disliking to me when Marge had come for one of her mercifully infrequent visits. I still had scars on my leg from when it attacked me in the back yard. Marge had refused to call Ripper off for two minutes after the attack started, claiming that I had 'provoked' him.

All I could really do was count my blessings that I had managed to prevent the scars from getting infected.

The further they got away from me, I noticed that the dog's image shuddered. I let out my breath and it disappeared. Accidental magic. By nature, you couldn't really prepare for it – I still had shocks whenever it happened.

"It hurts, Cassie..." Harry whimpered. I petted his hair with my free hand as the yard supervisor came running.

"Shhh, shh, it's going to be okay, it'll stop hurting, I promise..." I whispered. The supervisor helped Harry stand up and the two of us moved to the nurses's office.

I sat outside while the woman fussed over Harry, bemoaning how often he managed to get himself hurt, my stomach burning. Dudley and his friends always had it out for Harry, but it was getting worse as the years went by. This wasn't the first time they'd managed to give Harry serious injuries.

And unfortunately, it wasn't going to get any easier when we got home. I was probably out of meals for a week, plus a double chore load, for having injured Petunia's precious 'Dudders'. The last time that had happened, I was delirious for nearly an hour leaving Harry entirely at our 'family's mercy.

I could already hear both Petunia and Vernon screaming at me. Freak, monster, brat, ungrateful, waste of space, should have abandoned you to the orphanage, should have died with your parents-

I was seven years old. And I was absolutely sick of it.

Hearing Harry, the only person I could claim to love or who loved me, cry because Dudley had hurt him once again, was simply a snapping point.

I knew the world out there was dangerous, but how was being locked in with abusers who threw cast iron objects at us any different from being locked in a house with Lucius Malfoy?

I asked to get my bag. Once I had retrieved it, I counted out six dollars. Enough for a bus fare for both of us. A change of clothes, just in case. Fantastic.

A plan wormed its way into my head, an insane plan, but I had stopped caring at some point. Anything had to be better then this.

When Harry was eventually released by the nurse, gauze taped to his lip, I took his hand and whispered, "C'mon Harry."

"But Cassie, you're going the wrong way," Harry protested when we left the school and I turned to the left, away from Privet Drive. "Home is that way."

I tightened my grip on his hand, pausing my stride. As much as I loathed to even consider it, Petunia being our blood relative did mean that an impenetrable protection was around that house. At least we wouldn't have to worry about the Death Eaters.

But I rebelled against that. It wouldn't protect us from the Dementors that Umbridge sent after Harry in the story from home. It didn't protect us from the monsters we were locked in with. And there was nothing in all the world that would convince me that Harry's blood, which still coated my jacket, was worth being spilled to keep us a little bit safe.

"We're not going that way, Harry." I told him. "We're not going there ever again."

Harry looked at me in surprise. There was honest-to-god hope in his eyes, and a glimmer of fear that it was misplaecd. "Really?" He whispered. "You promise?"

I took a shaky breath. "I promise, Harry." I said softly. I started walking again, tugging urgently on his arm. "Now come on, we have to get going."

Later

After some frustrating searching through maps and other such things (leaving me wishing, not for the first time, that this was 2015 and the internet was a thing), I finally located a bus that would take us to London. Once we got there, I took us on foot to a particular stretch of the city and tapped the bricks with my fingers.

I still remembered where the entrance to Diagon Alley was, and the Leaky Cauldron was the first stopping point that I had in mind.

Right now, however, I was entertaining an older lady – a squib! Imagine that – with sob stories about myself and Harry. She felt so sorry for us she gave me ten galleons.

Okay. So I was getting lucky today. I felt like fate owed me a little luck after the shit that had happened over the course of the last few years.

It wasn't enough to buy a room, of course. Me and Harry had to sneak in, hiding away in the basement of the building in a bed of ratty blankets and cardboard boxes. I had managed to buy a sandwich in the muggle world, which we split between the two of us.

Harry was amazed by everything, and he had been pestering me to explain. I was too mentally and emotionally exhausted to tell him the whole, 'we're actually wizards' deal, so I just promised to tell him later and to get some sleep.

I didn't go to sleep quite yet. After Harry had fallen asleep, I went looking for the wizarding equivalent of a post office. The Magical Emporium actually had a service where you could send a letter anywhere for a few galleons. I had just enough, and I sent a tawny brown owl off in the direction of Hogwarts.

It was for a certain Headmaster.

Dear Mr Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

I don't think there are words for how much I hate you. If there are, I can't think of them.

When you left us on the doorstep of Number 4 Privet Drive, did you – did you know what kind of people lived in there? Did you know how they would treat us? And if you did know, why didn't you drop a hint – any sort of hint – that would make them stop?

Do you have any idea what you've put me and my brother through? I can tell you, it involved getting smashed over the head with a cast iron frying pan. It involved no meals for extended periods of time, it involved getting worked like a house elf while our cousin put considerable effort into making our lives miserable. It involved me having to parent my six year old brother because neither our aunt and uncle gave a damn about our health.

Did you know? Did you know how they treated us? Did you know about the belt or the cupboard? I have some scars on my legs to prove how awful these people are. That house has never been home to us, and it never will be home. It has been a prison. A gateway to hell in the living world.

We're not there anymore. Dudley broke Harry's lip yesterday and that was all I could take. I took Harry and I left – where we'll go, I don't know yet. But I do know that anywhere will be better then with our aunt and uncle.

I can't imagine what possessed you to leave us with these people. And yes, I know it was you – children listen, especially when weird people come up to them and start bowing to them like their the prince and princess of Wales or something.

If you DID know, I want you to know that I will never, ever forgive you for putting us through that.

Hello and Goodbye (and, quite possibly, good riddance);

Cassie Dorea Potter (and Harry James Potter)

End Chapter

Rewritten and expanded! Next time, myself and Harry wander around as street kids as I plan to go rat hunting (and realize I might not have thought this through all the way)

Read and Review please!