They were innocent, once, before they took on a war that they had not started. They were children, once, before they were labeled as wild, genius, clever, manipulative, dark, spies, chosen. 11-year-old Hope Riddle did not know that, because of her, the world would change forever. All she knew was that, no matter what Lucius said, Draco was her brother and her sisters never did as they were told and got her into loads of trouble.

She loved her sisters, of course. They had no one else. She had no one else. Both of them had taken a liking to the Weasley family. Mercy, all brash actions and obnoxious humor had become fast friends with Fred and George who, even at the young age of 11, were already causing chaos. Hope did not want to know where that damn map came from. Faith had fallen into what would have been a cute crush on Percy, if only she hadn't decided to become just like him. Faith had needed the tutoring, but Hope didn't think it was worth all the "Did you know that Percy did this?"'s that Mercy was oh so conveniently never around to be bombarded with. Not to mention that Percy had done his job too well, as Faith was catapulted to the top of the class and she refused to shut up about it.

Except for Potions. That was where Hope reigned. She was the only student who could draw a smile from Severus Snape's face, and it mystified everyone. Perhaps it was her genuine interest in the subject combined with her natural talent for it. Or maybe it was her cheerful but quite demeanor, especially when compared to her sisters. Either way, she was clearly Snape's favorite, and therefore everyone stayed away. But that was fine, she told herself. She had her sisters and Draco. And Professor Snape was always willing to listen to her and answered all her questions with ease. She wasn't alone, not by a long shot.

He hadn't wanted to tutor the little Slytherin girl, not really, but it would look good for when he was to work at the Ministry, so when McGonagall asked him to help a first year who was having difficulty, he did it. Percy was simply expecting a dumb girl who would never get it and for it to mostly be a waste of time. He was wrong.

Faith Riddle was not what he was expecting. He had heard of her sisters, the Potions prodigy, and his younger brothers' best friend, who just so happened to be the mastermind behind many of their annoying pranks. Faith was not her sisters, Percy figured out quickly. The first words that she had said to him where,

"I'm not stupid. I can do the spell. But this was the only way I could think of to get an older student to talk to me." No, Faith was not her sisters. She was smarter than both of them combined. That conclusion scared him. Of course, he asked her to prove that she knew what she was doing. She simply rolled her eyes, transformed the stupid rat into a stupid goblet, and looked at him as though she was saying do you believe me now? Before he knew it, he had begun to grin and laugh, happy he had chosen to have this first meeting outside instead of in the library.

"What's so funny," Faith asked as she crossed her arms, curly black hair brushing over them as the wind blew.

"You decided to fake having problems learning and it worked. It actually worked. That's brilliant," Percy answered. Faith no longer looked angry but now she was confused.

"Why wouldn't it work? I'm not stupid." That was the second time that she had said that in a span of about ten minutes and Percy was beginning to think that maybe someone had told her that she was. He was getting this urge to protect this curious, clever girl from anyone who would tell her that she was anything but amazing. And so he made a rash decision.

"If I promise to be your friend, do you promise that you start actually showing what you can do in class?" She waved her hand dismissively.

"I don't want a friend," she said. Percy raised one eyebrow.

"Then what do you want?"

"I want you to teach me, even the stuff the professors think I'm too young to know. I'm always so bored in class because it's all too easy," she replied. This should have rung warning bells in his head. In fact, it did. But something was telling him that if he didn't do it, she would find someone else. There were plenty of people in Hogwarts who would try to take advantage of her open, innocent, curiosity. He had the thought that she would eat them alive, but he shook it off, she was 11.

"Same thing, you stop pretending, and I'll teach you," he found himself saying. Faith smiled and suddenly he was very afraid of what this girl could grow into.

Mercy was the one most people thought of when someone mentioned the Riddle sisters. She was loud, clever, friendly, and liked to make people laugh. She also had very little regard for the rules. Combine all these things, and it's no wonder that Fred and George were drawn to her. Well, really, it was really more the sheer number of shared detentions and mutual love of being the family disappointment. The first created their friendship, the second cemented it. And their various misadventures occurred because of a fateful detention and a magical map.

To hear the boys tell it, it was their idea to go rummaging through Filtch's desk and Mercy was simply there to watch their genius. This is not true. Yes, it was George who eventually figured out the way to get it to work, and Fred who uttered the correct words that would cover their tracks, but by the time that they had gotten to the custodian's office, Mercy was already arm deep in years of confiscated items. The red-haired boys looked at each other and then said in unison,

"What are you doing Riddle?" She laughed.

"It's Mercy, please. And what does it look like? He's got to have something interesting in here," she told them, not really bothering to look at them. That was when they heard a cat's footsteps. Mercy closed her hand around whatever object it happened to be touching, hip-bumped the drawer shut and grabbed George's hand and bolted, fully expecting Fred to follow, which he did. Neither boy knew where she was leading them, but they had a feeling it didn't matter. They were right.

As it turned out, she was taking them to the Slytherin common room, which, at first they were hesitant about, but she rolled her eyes.

"You guys aren't coming inside, dummy. I need to tell my sister something," she said before whispering something that the boys couldn't hear and slipping into the common room.

Fred looked at his brother.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"We need to keep her?"

"Yes."

And then she was back in their faces with bright eyes and smirk, waving a bit of parchment in front of her.

"As fascinating as I'm sure whatever it was that you two were talking about is, how about we go somewhere quiet and figure this thing out?" Her voice was loud and a bit high-pitched. She was crazy and constantly got detention for being a bit too enthusiastic with her jokes. But they were crazy and constantly in detention for their pranks. They were loud and spoke in sync more often than not. So they grinned and said,

"Fred and George, at your service, Mercy Riddle."