Harry wasn't entirely sure why he woke up at 3 am at first but then he saw the fire. "Argh!" He yelled frantically trying to grab his wand but without his glasses in the dark he may as well have tried to find a fire extinguisher on his bedside table.
"What is it, boy?" Uncle Vernon came storming into Harry's room, bushy moustache quivering with rage. When he saw the fire his eyes went wide and his face paled. "Petunia! Call the fire service!"
The sound of his wife dashing to the phone was muffled to Harry when his uncle turned on him, great face red with anger. "What are you doing boy? Trying to get us all killed?" then grabbing Harry by the scruff of the neck he hauled him down the stairs and shoved him into the under stairs cupboard. With a click of the lock Harry was left in the dark with nothing but some of his old school books.
Ten minutes later dust leaked through the ceiling of the cupboard to Harry as firefighters stormed up the stairs to his room. Harry sighed. Why does this kind of thing always happen to me? Although thinking about it Harry realised that this burst of uncontrolled magic was different from all the others. Before he'd had to be upset or angry to lose control but he'd been sleeping fine when the fire had started. And this was fire a magical element and notoriously hard to control, although he hadn't had much of that. But Harry knew enough to know that small flames, like the blue ones his friend Hermione makes when they're cold, is about as much as a witch or wizard generally make. Unless you're Dumbledore or something.
In short it all didn't make sense and that bugged Harry, who'd always been far too curious for his own good. Maybe it hadn't been magical? But then what kind of fire just starts in the middle of the night on the end of your bed? For some reason he thought of Dobby and another bizarre way of saving his life by injury but Dobby had sworn to never save Harry again. Another House elf? Maybe it's a species thing.
Either way it didn't make any sense. He half wished that he had some form of light so that he could read the books around him instead of thinking about what had happened. If Harry thought that the night couldn't get any stranger he was wrong. As soon as the thought of light popped into his head his hand began to glow a bright golden light.
"What the?" Harry stared at his hand. Wandless, wordless, powerful magic. He'd just performed something that even fully qualified wizards couldn't do. He stared at his hand as it illuminated the small space with a warm comforting glow. This night was getting beyond bizarre.
Harry couldn't move and then suddenly he started banging on the cupboard door. "Let me out! Please I need to contact Dumbledore!" Even though he could hear his aunt and uncle near, they didn't respond. "Please! If you let me out and contact Dumbledore I can leave here quicker!"
He knew his uncle's brain was at war with itself, torn between allowing Harry to have his way and contacting wizards or getting rid of Harry after just two days. About thirty seconds later the cupboard door opened and Harry scrambled out hand still glowing.
"What the blazes do you think you're doing boy?" Uncle Vernon shouted, looking outraged at Harry's hand.
"I can't control it!" Harry shouted back. "That's why I need to contact Dumbledore. It's probably why the fire started." As he got angrier two things happened: 1) Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia shrank back into the wall and 2) objects began flying around the room and the glow from Harry's hand turned blinding. "What is happening to me?"
Crack!
Sirius Black suddenly stood before his godson, eyes filled with worry and panic. "Harry, what's wrong?" Then he took in his surroundings and his eyes widened as he saw the state of the room with its objects flying around at break neck speed. "Harry! You need to calm down. Your emotions are only making whatever the hell this is worse!"
"Sirius! Get Dumbledore. It's getting worse!" Harry's voice broke as the sofa in the next room started to levitate. Sirius, also seeing the now flying sofa, nodded dumbly and with another crack! Apparated out of the room leaving behind a panicking Harry and some terrified Dursleys.
About half a minute later both Dumbledore and Sirius apparated into the room. The Dursleys watched in horror as within that time Harry's hair changed from purple to red to lime green and then to electric blue. "Don't worry Harry. Remus is getting Madam Pomfrey." Dumbledore said quickly trying to calm the hysterical boy in front of him who was giving off extremely high readings of magic.
"What's happening to me?" Harry choked out as suddenly his whole body felt on fire and he began to feel dizzy and sick. Dumbledore and Sirius both dashed forward as Harry collapsed and the caught him just before he hit the floor. As soon as he was out the levitating objects stopped and his hand stopped glowing as much but there was still a slight light. The blue hair returned to its original black.
Without a word Sirius scooped up his unconscious godson and laid him on the now stationary sofa. "What the bloody hell is going on Albus?" Sirius asked in a growl.
"I have no idea, Sirius, but it's powerful." Dumbledore looked slightly miffed that he didn't know and if the situation wasn't so serious Sirius would have laughed at the professor's put out face.
"Is he going to be ok?"
Before Albus could reply to his ex-pupil the Dursleys regained the use of their voices. "I'm not having him in the house!" Uncle Vernon shouted his whole face beet red as he stared at the two wizards in his living room.
Sirius looked as if he was about to attack the man before Dumbledore replied blithely. "As soon as Poppy has arrived and examined him we'll be out of your hair."
The group sat in silence for a few moments until Sirius broke it. "Professor…" Dumbledore looked at Harry to see what Sirius was talking about and watched in awe as the boy began to glow like his hand only this time a faint pink. "What is happening to him?"
Dumbledore shrugged looking at the boy, his old face filled with concern as he felt an unusual vibration of old magic rush through him. He was saved from answering by yet another crack! As Remus Lupin and Madam Pomfrey appeared in the room both looking harried and worried. "What on earth?" Lupin whispered as his eyes caught the bright pink glow shrouding Harry's sleeping form.
Poppy didn't even hesitate to dash to the boy's side, medicine bag in hand. After a few minutes of close examination she looked at those around her with her eyes wide and concerned. "It seems that some sort of spell or potion used on Harry is wearing off."
"What king of spell could make him levitate things, glow and change his hair colour without trying?" Sirius asked wide eyed.
Remus looked at his friend, his mouth hanging open. "He really did all that?"
At Sirius' nod Remus looked thoughtful as he tried to understand what was happening to his favourite ex-pupil. "Can you tell when this spell was put on him?"
Poppy nodded her face full of confusion. "I'd say shortly after his birth. Maybe even as soon as he was born."
"What? But that would mean either Lily, James or Andromeda put a spell on Harry!" Sirius cried in outrage. "None of them would do something like that! Risking Harry's life by putting a spell on him so soon after birth."
"Unless it was to protect him in the long run." Dumbledore mused aloud and the others all looked at him confused. But he was starting to understand.
"What could that possibly be that meant you'd have to put it on him so soon?" Remus asked and then his eyes widened as a thought came to him. "Oh…"
"What?" Sirius asked looking between his friend and ex-headmaster.
Before either could respond the light brightened around Harry suddenly forcing all those there to look away to save themselves from being blinded. When they looked back it wasn't Harry they saw sleeping peacefully on the sofa.
It was a girl with shoulder length unruly black hair who looked almost exactly like Harry only their features were softer and there was a stronger resemblance to Lily than before around the nose and jaw. Blearily the girl awoke wiping sleep form her wide beautiful green eyes. "Professor!" The voice was the same only it was about an octave or two higher than before. The girl didn't appear to notice though as she looked at the shocked faces around her. "What?" The girl looked down at herself and her eyes widened as she saw two lumps on her chest and the curve of her hips. "What's happened to me?" She cried and this time she noticed the voice change and clutched her throat with her face showing pure fear and panic.
Dumbledore suddenly remembered the letter he got twelve years ago two days before Halloween. He always carried it around with him as a reminder and in case 'the time' came. This seemed to be as good a moment as any so he carefully took the old parchment from his pocket and handed it to the frantic girl in front of him.
She took it without a word and with trembling slightly more delicate and smaller fingers than before she opened it and read. The six adults in the room watched as the girl read without a sound. By the end she was in floods of tears but whenever someone tried to get close enough to comfort her she shrank away. Instead Sirius took the letter and read it, eager to know what his long dead friend had written, by the end of it he was shedding a few tears to as he thought about how much this letter echoed Lily. Wordlessly he handed it to Moony who read and had a similar reaction but he also felt a sort of pain that James never knew the truth about his own child because Lily was either too scared to tell him or something.
When Dumbledore finally got the letter he had been carrying around for over a decade he read her words and then talked to Lily's daughter. "She always was a very talented potion brewer."
The girl didn't respond until in a hushed voice she croaked out. "Who am I?"
Madam Pomfrey took the girl and hugged her fiercely at the broken question and allowed the girl to continue crying into her shoulder. Objects began flying around the room the more distressed she got and the men had to duck down closer to the floor to protect themselves. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia dashed out of the room with small yelps.
Dumbledore raised his and with a small flick the objects stopped and returned to their normal places but they still shook slightly as if trying to resist Dumbledore's will. "Harry…" Sirius began but trailed off as he realised that the girl shouldn't be called 'Harry' anymore. "You are still my godchild. Still the child that defeated Voldemort three times and learnt how to do a patronus by the age of thirteen. You're just… a girl now. If you want you can call yourself Viola."
The girl looked up from the matron's shoulder at her godfather. "But everything has changed now hasn't it?"
Remus took a step closer and rested a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Everything changes but that doesn't mean that they're all bad changes."
The girl leant away from Poppy and wiped her eyes and face on her pyjama sleeve. "So I'm Viola now?"
Dumbledore nods at her. "If that's what you want. It's what your parents named you."
Viola nodded and looked at her godfather. "Why are there no Potter females? What happened?"
Sirius sighed and ran a hand through his matted hair. "It's a long story H-Viola." At her eager expression Sirius sighed and continued. "When your ancestors, and I'm talking about 500 years ago, lived Potter females were always born naturally incredibly powerful with skills that, according to legend, were beyond anything that had ever been seen. We're talking about wandless, wordless magic that could be done at a young age to the standard of the greatest wizards of the age. At first everyone was happy and delighted. Everyone wanted to marry a Potter woman but then the women started to go slightly mad. Homicidal mad until at last the Potter Patriarch well he killed them all including his own baby daughter and then he created a potion that stopped females from being born into the family."
There was a silence until Viola spoke. "So I'm not a Potter?"
"No!" Sirius replied hastily looking panicked. "Lily must have used a potion that broke the spell. It says in the letter that you're James' child and there's no way from just looking at you that you're not James'."
"I want to check."
"Viola from what we've just seen you are a Potter. No normal witches at your age make objects fly about like that or set fires like that."
"I don't care! Test me." Poppy sighed and after taking some of Viola's blood apparated herself away to go and test it. "So what happens now?"
So how was that? Thanks for reading!