Title: Surviving
Author: Emma Night
Summary: The entire concept of the Boy-Who-Lived is wrong. Why? Because it was a girl and not a boy. Follow this girl as she makes her entire own way through Hogwarts and all that comes with it.
Chapter Warnings: fem!Harry, Character Death
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I don't any of the things you recognize from the Harry Potter-books written by J.K. Rowling. I do, however, own the plot and this fanfiction.
Chapter 2
Childhood
It was an early summer morning, the sun had just risen and most people were still vast asleep in their warm, comfortable beds. Most people. Most people did not and probably would not ever include Gabrielle Potter.
She swept the sweat from her forehead with the back of her dirt-covered hand as she overlooked the hard work she had delivered. The garden looked absolutely immaculate, just as her Aunt wanted it to be. The flower beds were colourful and neatly trimmed, the grass looked like it had just been laid, the trees and bushes were trimmed in neat figurines and the fountain was sparkly clean.
The now five-year-old girl smiled happily as she thought about how delighted her Aunt would be if she saw it. Doing the garden was Gabrielle's birthday present for her. She had heard all about other girls giving their mums nice drawings and things like that, but Aunt Petunia didn't like drawings. The only thing Aunt Petunia liked was tidiness and cleanliness. Well, she liked Dudley and Uncle Vernon, too, but that wasn't something Gabrielle could give as a birthday present. Therefore she had decided to make the garden and the house look absolutely spotless as her present. Cleaning was the only thing little Gabrielle excelled at, after all.
And how she hoped her Aunt would appreciate it, would appreciate her. Normally, she was always forgotten and ignored, but she hoped that with this present her Aunt would like her a bit more and give her some more attention.
She joyfully went back inside, being extra careful to wash her hands and feet so that they wouldn't soil the carpet. She opened the door to her cupboard and chased some of the spiders away before she lied down and went to sleep.
Her sleep wasn't to be long, though, as her Aunt woke her up only 2 hours after she had finished the garden. "Girl! Get up this instant! Breakfast needs to be done in 10 minutes!" the unpleasant-looking woman shrieked.
Gabrielle woke up with a start and rubbed her eyes. She was so tired, couldn't she sleep a bit longer? But her Aunt made it quite clear that she could not. "Girl! I said now!"
"Yes, Aunt Petunia." The young girl replied gravely and she moved to sit up on her cot. She reached for her glasses and as soon as she had them she exited her make-shift bedroom.
"About time!" her Aunt said spitefully, "How long do you intend to make us wait, huh?"
"I'm sorry, Aunt Petunia." Was the dutiful response.
"Humph." The older woman looked away with an expression of disgust etched on her features. The little girl quickly made her way to the kitchen after that. She desperately tried to hold back the tears she felt coming up, because that would ruin the bacon and the Dursleys wouldn't have that.
Soon the kitchen smelled like bacon, eggs, toast, and other things you might find on the table during breakfast. And with the smell came other things, too. Of course Dudley and Vernon Dursley could not resist the smell of food and where hanging around the kitchen; Vernon reading his newspaper, Dudley being annoying.
"Is it done, yet?" he'd ask every 30 seconds, whilst running around the kitchen with muddy shoes, touching every surface with greasy fingers, and just basically undoing all of Gabrielle's hard work from the previous night.
Before long breakfast was served and devoured, leaving not a single crumb for Gabrielle. She heard her stomach rumble loudly and apparently, so did her Aunt.
"Go fix yourself some breakfast, girl. Can't have you dying of starvation after all."
"Thank you, Aunt Petunia," the girl replied meekly. "What am I allowed to have?"
"Take whatever you want and don't forget to prepare my birthday cake," the horse-faced woman replied.
"I won't, Aunt Petunia," the girl said obligingly.
The older woman nodded at her and turned her back to the child, the faintest of smiles playing on her lips, "The garden looks simply wonderful today, I wonder what happened to it..." she said musingly, though knowing very well what had happened to it.
It got the desired effect, though. Gabrielle who was preparing her breakfast, was smiling broadly and honestly.
Petunia left the kitchen and closed the door behind her. She smiled to herself for making the little girl happy.
If only she didn't have that tyrant of a husband to worry about, she could do it more often. The woman sighed miserably.
Her husband had always loathed everything abnormal, including magic and so he loathed Gabrielle as well. And it wasn't as if Petunia herself was very fond of magic herself –she rather disliked it actually – but she was rather fond of little Gabrielle Anne Potter and she wished that she didn't have to treat her so cruelly.
She sighed again.
"You good-for-nothing little brat!" Every word was accompanied by a harsh blow, "How dare you embarrass me!"
"But Uncle Vernon..." the seven-year-old cried out, her voice frightened and weak, "I didn't do anything!"
"Yes, you did! You made me lose my job, you little bitch!" the man shouted. His face was going from red to purple and back again as his rage took over. His fists connected with the side of the raven-haired girl's head.
As the girl painfully fell to the floor, Aunt Petunia barged in; "What the hell do you think you're doing, Vernon?" she screeched.
"I'm punishing that worthless brat! Can't you see?"
"Punishing for what? She hasn't done anything wrong!"
"She made me lose my job! That fucking bitch made me lose my job!" Uncle Vernon barked angrily, kicking the defenceless girl once again. She whimpered softly in pain and Aunt Petunia got even angrier than she already was.
"That girl hasn't made you lose your job! Your incompetence has! You're an idiot, Vernon Dursley!" she shrieked.
Her husband stared at her, shock evident in his features. "What did you say, Petunia?" he asked quietly.
"You heard me!" You are an idiot! And if you think that I'll let you abuse this child for one more second, than you're even more of an idiot than I already thought you were!"
Uncle Vernon was physically shaking with anger, but didn't dare to hurt either woman. He stood by silently as Aunt Petunia checked up on her niece and decided that she needed professional care.
"Petunia..." he said after she had called the ambulance.
"What?" she snapped angrily, as she tried to make Gabrielle more comfortable without hurting her more.
"I'm sorry..."
Aunt Petunia sighed deeply and as the sirens were getting closer by, she stood up and put her arms around the person she married. "It'll be okay," she said, "We'll make sure it will be."
"What should we do, Vernon?" came the muffled voice of Aunt Petunia through the kitchen door. Gabrielle was desperately pressing her ear against the door in an attempt to catch every word leaving her guardians' lips. Above her, Dudley was doing the same thing, though he had gotten the key hole, while she had to make-do with the slit underneath the door.
"What do you mean what should we do? A good old-fashioned thrashing will beat the freakiness right out of that brat!" her husband answered her. Gabrielle just knew that the man was purple in the face, even though she couldn't see him.
"No! Absolutely not, Vernon! I told you before, no child deserves to be beaten!"
"No child deserves to get away with turning the teacher's hair blue!" came the angry reply.
"It's not her fault! The teacher was deliberately provoking her!" Aunt Petunia said in a shrill, angry voice.
"And she should've sucked it all up! That's what school kids are supposed to do!"
"You're being unreasonable, Vernon!" Aunt Petunia shouted, "You don't even want to try understanding that not everything is Gabrielle's fault! You treat her as if she's a rat and as if she does nothing but causing us trouble!
" You promised me that you would treat her fairly! You promised me that you would never hit her again and yet, here you are proposing to do just that! You promised me that you would help me with giving her a nice childhood, but you're not even trying, Vernon! The only things you want to see are lies!
"You know as well as I do that that girl is a sweet, reliable child and has never done any deliberate wrong in her life! She deserves better than what you're giving her and you know it! You just refuse to acknowledge it!"
The angry woman stormed out of the room while Dudley and Gabrielle hurriedly scrambled back to avoid having the door slammed in their faces. She grabbed both children by their elbows and dragged them out the front door.
"Mum, what're you doing?" Dudley asked alarmed, his face completely pale.
"I'm taking you away from that tyrant of a man!" was the angry reply. Aunt Petunia opened the doors of the car and forced both children in the back of the car.
"I won't let you do this, Petunia!" came the angry voice of Uncle Vernon as he watched it all happening from the front door.
"Oh no? How do you think you're going to stop me?" Aunt Petunia said haughtily as she threw her purse at the passenger's seat. Gabrielle watched it all happening with wide eyes. She did know what was going on, but she could hardly believe it; her Aunt was taking her and Dudley away from the man who liked to beat her up, who liked to belittle her because of something she didn't have any control of. The eight-year-old allowed herself a little smile as she thought about how different her life would be from now on.
Next to her Dudley had gone into something akin to shock, his face was as white as a sheet and he kept on murmuring to himself. He'd realized what was going on and didn't like it one bit. He wanted his parents to stay together! He wanted to bully his cousin! He wanted to be spoiled rotten! And yet he knew that none of these things would be reality; not any longer. Not now his mother had decided to leave her husband once and for all.
The car door slammed and the tires screeched as Aunt Petunia made her way out the drive way and out of the life she previously had.
"Aunt Petunia! Look at this!" Gabrielle yelled as she entered the kitchen of their small apartment.
"What's that, sweetie?" her Aunt replied nicely as she crouched down to come face-to-face with the excited eleven-year-old.
"Look at how weird this letter looks! Why would anyone put my room in the address? Isn't that just silly, Auntie?" she asked as she showed Aunt Petunia the letter she got.
The fair-haired woman blanched at the sight of the letter. Of course she had known and expected it to come, but against the expectation she had hoped; hoped that Gabrielle was just a normal child, a child without magic. But know she had the proof that her hope was futile, because in the child's hand was a letter from the place she lost her sister to.
Despite all of this she put a smile on her face. She knew how important this day was for withes and wizards and even though she wasn't at all fond of their abnormality, she wanted to support the child that was left in her care.
"That does look very silly," she replied, "Why don't you open it to see whom it's from?"
"That's a good idea!" the girl responded and she immediately ripped the envelope open and pulled the various pieces of parchment inside out. She began reading the first one and as she progressed it Petunia could see her forehead starting to scrunch with confusion. The green-eyed girl looked up and with a confused-sounding voice said: "Auntie, why does this letter say that I'm accepted into a school for wizards?"
A/N: Here is chapter 2 of Surviving! I hope you enjoyed it! Lots of thanks to once-bitten-twilight-smitten, dhh, Raven Marcus, and Lily887787 who have all kindly left a review. Thanks to anyone who added this to their Story Alert/Favourites!
Love,
Emma Night