"This," said Professor Snape, with a touch of disdain in his voice, "is the Leaky Cauldron."

Elizabeth was overcome by amusement, as Dot, upon hearing the name of the pub for the third time in the last hour, went into a renewed fit of giggles.

Snape raised an exasperated but patient eyebrow at Dot, and the blond girl quickly got control of herself.

"Before we enter," said Snape, locking suddenly serious dark eyes with Elizabeth. "there is something you should be made aware of."

Elizabeth stood waiting, silent and patient.

"You are a celebrity in the wizarding world, Miss Po- Elizabeth." Snape continued softly. "It is because of your defeat of the Dark Lord ten years ago. There isn't an adult in this world that does not know your name, and not a child that has not grown up hearing it. They call you 'The-Girl-Who-Lived.'"

Elizabeth took several long moments to let her feelings and thoughts run their course, all the while remaining motionless and expressionless.

Shock, awe, and horror. Fear and pressure. Wonderings about just how the world was going to react to her as she was now, and how they would react to the knowledge that she had in fact survived the Dark Lord twice.

The most prominent of all her feelings was the horror, however.

She was famous, and not just a little. She was a household name!

Snape might as well have given her a death sentence.

Elizabeth hated being a caged animal in a zoo enough as it was, but NOW the zoo was expanding its clientele worldwide?

Was she doomed to go through her life being hounded, clawed at, mobbed, the object of everything she had endured at the orphanage, but kicked up to eleven?

She felt sick.

"Do you understand this?" Snape asked of her quietly.

"Yes, sir." Elizabeth whispered, lowering her gaze to her own body. To the plastic arm that hung there, and further down, to the (very obviously alongside her real leg) fake bit of her prosthetic leg that was exposed in the break between pants leg and shoe.

That was to be her future in the magical world, she thought. Exposed.

But...but Elizabeth could take it. She would have to. She needed to be in this world, she needed what it offered her. She WANTED what it offered her - and she wasn't going to let a few more people gawking at her stop her from getting what she wanted.

"Little do they know, you're 'The-Girl-Who-Lived-Twice.'" said Dot, catching Elizabeth's eye and grinning.

Elizabeth managed to give her friend a small smile in return. "I'm not going to enlighten them."

"Then I won't, either." Dot assured.

"That is, of course, entirely your choice." Snape said lightly to Elizabeth. "Now, come."

The inside of the Leaky Cauldron did not surprise Elizabeth. It was dark, cool, and-

Crowded. So very, very crowded. A full house.

Fortunately for Elizabeth (who could feel the beginnings of panic coming back to her in the face of so many people up close and personal) Snape struck up an unrelenting pace for a door at the back of the pub - not to mention that Snape's very presence prompted the denizens of the pub to suddenly become MUCH more interested in their own business.

But Snape's brisk walk was also unfortunate, because, after several hours now of walking, Elizabeth's ill-fitted prosthetic leg started to give her pains.

Nevertheless, she kept her head down, and kept going, crossing both her prosthetic and her real arm over her chest, as if she could physically contain the panic that was trying to claw its way out of her.

Elizabeth stole a glance at Dot on her left, then refocused her eye on the door ahead.

They were half-way across the pub now, but that door might as well have been a million miles away.

It was like that dream where you were running down a corridor, but the door at the end kept getting farther and farther away.

Elizabeth was far too keenly aware of all those eyes sneaking peeks at her and Dot, at all those faces surrounding her, all those-

"G-good e-evening S-S-Severus." came a timid, stuttering little voice.

Suddenly, almost as if out of nowhere, a pale man had stepped into Snape's path.

Elizabeth froze, and ducked her head all the more - so much so that her chin was touching her chest - and her long, dark red hair spilled down around her, hiding her as surely as any curtain.

"D-didn't e-expect you to b-be here today." said the stuttering voice.

"Quirrell." Snape greeted, and in the utterance of that name Elizabeth heard a startling amount of annoyance. Annoyance, she noted, that was laced with a great deal of disgust and animosity.

"Wh-who've you g-got with y-you?" Quirrell stammered, with unbridled curiousity. "It's n-not l-like you to t-travel with c-children, S-severus."

"They are students." Snape gritted. "Students who I am accompanying to help them to collect their school things, so as you can imagine, we are rather pressed for time, so if you would kindly get out of the way..."

"Professor Snape?" spoke a new voice. "This is an unexpected visit, but a pleasure, of course. And who are the lasses you've got here with you?"

Dot, unlike Elizabeth, was in her element. "I'm Dot, but you can just call me Dot. Nice to meet you, Mr..."

Elizabeth heard a great sigh from Snape.

"This is Professor Quirrell." Snape said slowly. "He will be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. And this is Tom, the bartender here at the Lea- at this pub!" he amended hastily, and Elizabeth saw in her mind's eye the professor throwing Dot a look that bordered on panicked.

"And this is...?" Tom the bartender trailed off, referring to Elizabeth.

Before Snape could answer, before anyone could say anything else, Elizabeth, coming to a decision, steeled herself, and raised her head.

"My name is Elizabeth. Elizabeth Potter." she said firmly, looking the bartender in the eye.

And there it was, that widening of the eyes, that weakening of the muscles, that flashing of pity and horror...

"Dear merlin." Tom breathed. "Miss Potter...?"

Elizabeth held his gaze for a moment longer, then looked at Quirrell, who had gone paler than usual. She also got her first good look at the man - or, more accurately, at the ridiculously large purple turbin on his head.

"P-P-Potter," stammered Quirrell, clutching his hands to his chest. "C-can't t-tell you h-how p-pleased I am to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too." Elizabeth replied, crushing her discomfort as ruthlessly as she had crushed her terror once - no, so many times - before.

Dot had been right, back at the orphanage. Elizabeth survived, she endured. That was who she was, who she had always been, and Dot had always believed in that.

It was time Elizabeth started believing in it, too.

"So, you teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Elizabeth inquired of Professor Quirrell, doing her best to smile.

"N-not that y-you n-need it, eh, Potter?" Quirrell laughed nervously, his eyes flashing with...something. Had that been...fear?

No, surely not. What reason would a Professor have to be afraid of Elizabeth?

Plenty of reasons, a little voice said in Elizabeth's mind. With fame comes infamy. Not everyone will like you, especially not if you got rid of the greatest and most feared Dark Wizard of all time. And that Dark Wizard had, and probably still did have, a lot of supporters...

Elizabeth came out of her pondering to realize that the Leaky Cauldron was completely still and silent - and that all eyes were on her.

"Bless my soul..." a man whispered. "Elizabeth Potter, it really is you, returned to us at last."

There was a great scraping of chairs, and then Elizabeth found herself surrounded by everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Welcome back, Ms. Potter, welcome back."

"Doris Crockford, Ms. Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."

"So proud, Ms. Potter, I'm just so proud."

"Always wanted to shake your hand, I'm all of a flutter."

"Delighted, Ms. Potter, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."

They were pressing around her, hands were seizing hers, words were whirling and buffeting her. So much, all at once, all around her, and Elizabeth's panic was full blown. It was all a blur, and she was starting to feel sick again, feeling like she couldn't breath, feeling trapped, trapped and surrounded by danger, by-

"STOOOOOOOOOOP!"

Everyone around Elizabeth suddenly found themselves flying backwards, the fireplace and the lamps were all extinguished, the plates and bowls shattered, the silverware melted into liquid, the tables cracked in half, the chairs imploded, chair legs shooting off in all directions like spears, only to splinter on impact, and entire foundation itself shook and shivered, loosing thick clouds of dust.

And then it was over, and all that remained was silence, and darkness.

And the gasping and retching of Elizabeth, down on her hands and knees, in the aftermath of her scream.

A shaken-sounding Snape muttered "Lumos.", and then a bright, white light filled the pub - a light that originated from the tip of Snape's wand, Elizabeth saw, and she made a note to remember the word. The spell.

"Up you get." Snape murmured, gently grasping Elizabeth under her arm and pulling her to her feet. "It would be best to leave now..."

"I'll say." Dot laughed, though it was a shaky laugh. In the light from Snape's wand, Elizabeth could see the...not fear, but...wariness, in Dot's eyes. In all their time together, throughout all of Elizabeth's incidents of accidental magic, both before and after the fire, Elizabeth had never lost control of herself so severely. Had never caused so much damage.

"Did I hurt you?" Elizabeth croaked, looking Dot over intently, and taking her friend's hand into her trembling own. Though it wasn't just Elizabeth's HAND that was trembling. She was shaking all over.

"I'm the only one you DIDN'T hurt." Dot assured, smiling. "Besides him." she added, nodding at Snape.

"I'm sorry." Elizabeth said loudly, to Snape, and to the entire pub.

"Do not worry about it." Snape said, both firmly and softly, somehow. He herded the girls out the back door and into a sun-lit alley, gave a brief instruction to them to wait there, then he disappeared back into the pub.

Elizabeth fell against the brick wall, and slumped to the ground. Dot joined her. "I-"

"Don't say you didn't mean to do it, 'cause we both know you did." said Dot fiercely, shaking her head. "And they deserved it, all of it. Them and their filthy pub. They were being...uh, what's a word for people who act...how they did?"

"I don't think there is a word for it." Elizabeth sighed. "But you're right. I meant to do it. I meant to hurt them."

"You meant to make them back off." Dot corrected, laying a hand on Elizabeth's knee. "And you did. I haven't seen you do anything that brave since-"

"Don't."

"-since you saved me!" Dot persisted, her blue eyes shining with adoration. "And that's nothing to deny. What you did back there isn't something to deny either! You just- you fought, you stood up, you-"

"No!" Elizabeth said sharply. "I wasn't brave THAT NIGHT, and I wasn't BRAVE in THERE. I was AFRAID, I was SICK, and I was-"

"You were STRONG." Dot countered. "You were brave and you were incredible, and you were RIGHT. Both times."

"Just the first." Elizabeth attempted to compromise.

"Both." Dot said firmly. "Being brave isn't NOT being scared peeless, it's being scared peeless and fighting back anyways. You're made of IRON, Liz, you just- you don't seem to want to see it for some reason. You don't want to BE IT. Enough's enough, okay? It's time to stop keeping your head down, time to stop staying quiet. Start screaming, start pushing and clawing, and start showing on the outside that steel will that we both know is inside you."

"I did." Elizabeth stated. "Back there, I did. I faced Professor Quirrell and the bartender with my chin up, and I made everyone back off."

"But you withdrew." argued Dot. "You let it slip away again. I can't see it now, Liz, looking at you right now, I can't see it. Not in the way you're holding yourself, not in the way you're talking. You're not meek inside, you're not quiet inside. Why do you not want to show that for more than just short little moments - or when we're alone?"

The response, "I could ask you the same thing." was on the tip of Elizabeth's tongue. But she didn't say that. Dot didn't deserve insults, didn't deserve deflections. She deserved Elizabeth's honesty and sincerity.

So, after a long moment of silence, and a long moment of pondering, Elizabeth said finally, "I think I'm scared."

Dot's grip on Elizabeth's knee tightened just so. "Scared of what?"

"You saw me before the fire." Elizabeth said slowly. "Around the orphanage. You know what kind of girl I was. You know WHO I was. And I lost it all. I lost those friends, I lost that bold voice, I lost..."

"You lost that girl." Dot ventured gently.

"Yeah." Elizabeth looked at Dot's hand on her knee, and lay her own hand over top it. "I lost that girl. I'm afraid that if I let her come out again, that if she comes back that- that...that something or someone might- might crush her, might destroy her again. I'm so afraid to be who I was again because- because if I do I might LOSE who I was all over again. And it was so, so hard to have been broken and to have had to pick up the pieces the first time that I don't know if, if it were to happen again, I'd be able to do it a second time."

Dot's hand turned over, and her fingers closed around Elizabeth's. "You had me the first time, and you'd have me a second time."

Elizabeth nodded and returned the favor, gripping Dot's hand tight. "I don't know who I am without you."

Dot just shook her head. "You know who you were, who you still are inside. Be her, fully and completely. And know that I'll never you let you fall, know that I'll stand up for you forever, and know that I'll be here for you through it all, even if it sends me to heaven. So just be who you really are, and don't let it slip away again. Not again. Never again, after today, okay?"

"Never again." Elizabeth promised, her voice firm and not at all quiet. Promised herself as much as Dot.

From here on out, Elizabeth was NOT going to let fear stop her, control her, rule her.

That was why Elizabeth did what she did next. She kissed Dot on the cheek.

"What the- what was THAT?" Dot sounded more shocked than anything else, more so than pleased or embarrassed, and that made Elizabeth laugh.

"That was me taking your advice to heart, and thanking you for it in the first place." Elizabeth replied, part teasing, part serious.

Dot's hand found the spot on her cheek where Elizabeth had kissed it, and then both her cheeks started to go pink. "Oh, well...you're welcome, then."

"So are you." Elizabeth said, grinning brazenly.

Dot's blush intensified, but her eyes were all but sparkling.

"I want you to promise ME something now." Elizabeth spoke suddenly, turning slightly to face Dot and gripping her hand all the more tightly.

Dot nodded seriously. "What is it?"

"Don't go to heaven for me."

"You did for me."

Just as Elizabeth was opening her mouth to respond with a counterargument, the back door of the Leaky Cauldron swung open, and Snape came striding out into the alley.

"Are we ready to go, sir?" Elizabeth asked, getting to her feet.

Snape regarded her for a moment, his eyes curious, seeing the change in her stance, and hearing the alterations in the volume and tone of her voice, but he made no comment on it.

"Yes, we are." he answered, sweeping over to the brick wall and raising his wand.

"What were you doing in there that took so long?" asked Dot.

"Repairing the damages." Snape replied, not turning, a touch of amusement in his voice as he started tapping the bricks in a specific order with his wand.

Once finished with the sequence, Snape gave the brick wall three taps with his wand, and then the bricks began to wiggle and move. A small hole appeared in the center of the wall. It expanded, growing and growing until there was no longer a wall, but an archway, an archway through which could be seen a very packed, very wide, winding, cobbled street.

The girls stared in amazement.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley." smirked Snape. "There is a magical-creature shop, Magical Menagerie, just down the alley, which I will be taking the two of you to after we visit the wizard bank, Gringotts - and yes, the shop does have cats."

"Well then what are we waiting for?" Dot demanded, before all but throwing herself through the archway.

Smiling to herself, Elizabeth followed her friend through the archway at a leisurely walk.


"Potter, Elizabeth!"

As whispers and gasps broke out like little fires all over the hall, Elizabeth stepped up to be sorted.

But not...just...yet.

Upon reaching the sorting stool, Elizabeth turned right around and stood there, stood tall, shoulders squared, chin raised, her gaze sweeping over the entire hall and all who occupied it.

All who stared at her, with so many various expressions and emotions playing over their faces.

She stared right back.

At the front of the gaggle of first years, Dot's lips held a smile, and her blue eyes were shining with something akin to pride. She gave Elizabeth a not-at-all-discreet thumbs-up.

"Hi there." Elizabeth began, her voice loud and clear, strong and firm. "I'm the Girl-Who-Lived. Twice, actually. All of this," she gestured down at herself. "is the result of Voldemort,"-a ripple of gasps and shrieks rolled across the hall-"having made a second attempt on my life two years ago. But, for a second time, I defeated him."

The hall was dead silent. Even the Professors at the high table were unmoving - and completely enraptured.

"Ten years ago, in a day, I was stained with a role not my own." Elizabeth continued on, her voice ringing true. "It wasn't my choice, it wasn't my desire, and I didn't even know about it until recently, but trust me when I say to you all now that I intend to fulfill that role. The role of the Girl-Who-Lived. Your savior, your heroine, your champion. Your...Lady of the Light, if you will. If Voldemort, or any of his followers and supporters, wants to try their hand at ending my life, I say this: come and get me, because I've survived the killing curse twice now, and the third time's NOT going to be the charm."

All eyes continued to be on her, and for once, it was NOT because of her injuries.

"On the other hand, to Voldemort's followers and supporters," Elizabeth went on, her voice carefully measured and slow now. "I give you this to consider: I've broken your master twice now within a decade. Do you want to make the mistake of putting your faith in him again? In giving such a WRECK of a wizard your loyalty, when all you'll get is death or imprisonment? Or to those who've managed to avoid going to prison; do you want to risk the lives you have now, the families you have now, to return to the servitude of such a failure of a man?"

Elizabeth shut her her eye for a brief moment, and exhaled.

"I'm not asking you for your loyalty to me, I'm not asking for your service, or for your faith and devotion. All I'm saying is that if you value the much better lives you've had so far in Voldemort's absence, if you don't want to go back to him, and if you don't want to be down on your hands and knees at his weak and pathetic feet ever again, then I will do all in my power to protect you and your families from him, and to ensure that you keep those lives that you've so come to love."

"But I also issue this warning: if any of you decides to rejoin him, if any of you tries to find and aid him, or if any of you just has a relapse and starts hurting and killing people again - or maybe you never stopped - and I find out about it, I will not hesitate to break you, and I'll do it just as easily as I broke him. Both times."

"Take either the invitation, or the warning to heart." Elizabeth finished quietly. "The choice is yours."

With that, Elizabeth sat on the stool, took the sorting hat from a very still, very silent McGonagall, and delicately placed the hat on her head.

"Well now, that was the most interesting thing I have ever heard come out of a first year's mouth on her first night here, and I've been sorting students for hundreds of years now." said a small, amused, but also impressed voice in Elizabeth's ear. "Did you come up with that remarkable speech all on your own?"

Elizabeth sent Dot a smile from under the hat's brim. "As a matter of fact, I had a lot of help..."


"...maybe fame doesn't have to be fear." Elizabeth spoke, idly petting her orange and white, male tabby cat, whom she had named Tails immediately upon buying him from Magical Menagerie just a few hours earlier. "Maybe it doesn't have to be discomfort and pressure, negative and hindering."

Dot bundled up her grey bangled cat, who, to the annoyance of Snape (or perhaps TO annoy Snape), she had named Sev, and rose from the study desk in their room and swiftly joined Elizabeth on the bed.

"And?" Dot prompted, settling down.

"I am the Girl-Who-Lived." Elizabeth went on slowly. "As surely as I'm strong and brave, and all the things you've always believed and accepted me to be, all the things you've gotten me to believe in and accept about myself; Elizabeth. Fighter. Survivor. Witch. The Girl-Who-Lived. It's just another part of who I am, and I should embrace that part as much as I have the rest."

"That's good." said Dot. "That's really good."

"It is good." Elizabeth agreed. "But it will also be more than a little bad."

"Blow up another pub or two, and I'm sure your fanatical fans will think twice before swarming you." Dot said, entirely serious.

"That would be just one danger in embracing my fame."

"Blowing up a pub, or dealing with all your crazy fans?"

Elizabeth smiled. "The second one."


"Voldemort's not dead." Elizabeth stated, raising her eye from the pages of her recent wizarding history book to meet the eyes of Dot. "Two years ago, all we did was make him retreat, go back into hiding, just like what happened on that night TEN years ago. Which means that, hopefully not soon, he's going to make a comeback."

"It's a scary thought." Dot replied, giving a slight nod.

"Right." said Elizabeth. "But what if we could prevent, or at least delay, the aforementioned comeback on his part? What if we could take away his alternatives, limit his options?"

"Okay," Dot said slowly. "I follow you so far, but...How would we do that?"

"Think, what do all villains need?"

"A secret lair?"

"Well, yes, that." Elizabeth admitted, smiling slightly. "But, no. They need henchmen, minions. Without minions, a villain is severely hindered. So what if we take away Voldemort's minions?"

"I hate to be a broken record here, but how would we do that?"

Elizabeth bit her lip and glanced out the window, through which a late August breeze was flowing into the bedroom.

"By embracing every aspect of who I am." she said thoughtfully.


Dear Professor Snape,

I was reading through some of those history books I bought in Diagon Alley last month, and I came across something I was hoping you could give me some more information about.

I would like to know anything you can tell me about Voldemort's followers, the band of criminals called the "Death Eaters", that isn't in the history books.

I feel like there's a lot missing here.

Yours truly, Elizabeth Dianne Potter

"Is the letter finished?" asked Dot, looking up from her potions textbook, a subject she had taken a very keen interest in over the past few weeks.

"Just finished." Elizabeth assured. "Now I just have to hope it reaches the wizards and witches working in the post office, and that they'll deliver it to Snape."


"Oooh, owl!"

"Down, girl." Elizabeth said quickly to Dot, dashing past her friend to retrieve the letter from the leg of the brown owl that had just flown in through the open window.

"I think not." Dot proclaimed. "Because, one, this owl is really, really cute, and two, you can't open that letter without me."

"I have teeth." said Elizabeth pointedly.

"Granted. But teeth won't get the letter off the owl, which you kind of have to do before you can open it."

"Fine. Point taken." Elizabeth sighed, throwing up her hand and stepping away from the owl.

"And taken gladly." Dot laughed as she untied the letter from the owl's leg.

"Don't be so certain." muttered Elizabeth, though she was trying hard not to smile. "So what does it say?" she said, once Dot had finished perusing the letter.

Dot shrugged and offered Elizabeth the letter with a vivacious hand.

"A lot of things I didn't understand." Dot admitted, not sounding the least bit upset. Probably because, A, she knew Elizabeth would explain it all later, and B, because she had begun to occupy herself with stroking the owl while Elizabeth read the letter.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, found that she understood the letter's contents perfectly, and that it contained information that would be vital to the success of her plan.


A floor-shaking thud filled the compartment aboard the Hogwarts Express, as Dot unceremoniously dropped her trunk before slamming the compartment door shut and collapsing into the seat next to Elizabeth.

"The first spell I'm going to learn," Dot said breathlessly. "is that weightlessness spell I saw in- in whatever spellbook of yours it was that I saw it in a few weeks ago."

Elizabeth rummaged through her trunk, sifted through the three, additional, advanced spellbooks she had bought in Diagon Alley along with her first year spellbook, and dutifully emerged with the spellbook in question and held it up for Dot. "It's in this one."

"Great!" Dot exclaimed, swiping the book from Elizabeth and drawing her wand, which she gave a very long, loving look. "Can you believe there's an ACTUAL unicorn hair in this thing?"

"Only if you can believe there's a phoenix feather in mine." said Elizabeth, withdrawing her own, holly wand and giving it a look that was similar to the look that Dot had given her willow wand (though far less intense).

"Weightlessness spell...weightlessness spell..." Dot murmured, flipping through spellbook pages rapidly.

Elizabeth, too, opened up one of her spellbooks, and started scanning the pages. "I'm going to start with learning spells we might actually need."

"I need the weightlessness spell." Dot huffed.

"I'm going to start with learning spells we might need if Voldemort, or any Death Eaters, come after us." Elizabeth amended, with a shake of her head.

"If you were to cast the weightlessness spell on Voldemort, you could then punch him in the nose and knock him on his butt." Dot said smugly.

"I don't know whether or not that's just you thinking outside the box, or you being disturbingly creative." Elizabeth laughed.

"Either way, you should take it to heart. It might save your life one day." Dot joked.

"So could this...Lumos!" Elizabeth cried. The tip of her wand lit up like the sun, and she had to shut her eye and turn away, even in the light of day. Even then, when Elizabeth opened her eye after the light had faded, there was an afterimage burned into her retina.

"Wow. That actually COULD save you." Dot said with delight, blinking rapidly in the wake of the spell. "And beyond spells, so could a lot of potions." she added. "Take the strengthening solution, for example..."


"Hey, Liz..."

"What?" Elizabeth lifted her head off Dot's shoulder and stared blearily around the train compartment, which, now, with the day's train ride having slipped into the dark of night, was lit only by the light coming from the tip of Dot's wand.

"Sorry to wake you." Dot said quietly, and Elizabeth saw the blush coming to her cheeks in the wandlight.

Elizabeth smiled softly.

"Never mind that." she said. "What is it?"

Dot gestured at the pages in the spellbook she was reading with the lit tip of her wand.

"What am I supposed to be looking for?" Elizabeth frowned. Dot indicated a very specific paragraph with her index finger, and then Elizabeth understood just why her friend had woken her.

"A healing spell." Elizabeth said softly, feeling a sudden rush of far too many emotions for her to handle.

"Yeah." Dot said, voice just a soft. "See here, it says that damage by dark magic can't be repaired, at least not in most cases, not much, but..."

"But the fire was just a fire." Elizabeth finished, after a long silence, knowing very well what her friend was getting at.

"Exactly. It didn't occur to me until now, reading this, but- but can you imagine what they can fix with magic?"

"You think they can fix me?" Elizabeth spoke carefully.

"If they could, would you let them?" said Dot, her blue eyes glowing in the wandlight.

Elizabeth looked away, turned from the light, and in the darkness tears fell from her eye. Dot's question should have elicited such a simple, obvious answer from her: yes. She wanted to say yes.

The hurt, childish part of her wanted to say yes. Wanted to no longer be looked upon as something disgusting, as something to be spited, or pitied, or avoided. Wanted to again feel the limbs and organs she had lost, rather than the fleeting phantoms she was given to feel every so often. Wanted to not be in pain when she walked, wanted to be pretty, pretty and beautiful and WANTED again.

But the hard, the mature, the jaded, post-fire part of her didn't CARE about being PRETTY anymore, didn't CARE about being desired by all, because THAT part of her had Dot, THAT part of her could withstand so much, so much trouble, so much pain, and that part of her was PROUD and PLEASED to have adapted and survived despite the losses, and that part of her was adamant that IT DIDN'T NEED TO BE FIXED because it was an IMPROVEMENT over the child, over the sensitive, and the selfishness that had so fooled itself, time and time again, that it was selfless.

That part of her wanted to say no.

'A decision doesn't have to be made yet.' Elizabeth attempted to mediate between the two parts of herself.

While the two parts of her agreed that a decision did not have to be made YET, they also agreed that a decision would have to be made SOON.


"I see..." said the sorting hat, all contemplation.

"Yeah. Now you see." Elizabeth said lightly. "Can you sort me now, please?"

"Impatience from a girl who spent an entire month planning for and working towards this one, single night?" the hat responded, brimming with amusement.

Silence.

"Sort me at your own pace." sighed Elizabeth, returning her attentions to Dot.

"And I shall." said the hat. "I shall...Now, let's see here...plenty of courage, of course...quite a good mind you have, might do you good in...then again, you obviously, unquestioningly have an abundance of cunning, as you do with courage...hmmm...difficult, very difficult..."

"Put me where I would have the most success." Elizabeth said quietly.

"That is my job, Miss Potter." the hat chuckled. "But that is also the issue at hand. I can foresee your being MOST successful in any of the four Houses...Hmmm, why don't you decide which House you want to go to?"

"Okay." Elizabeth nodded. "Well, if Dot had been sorted already, I would honestly, probably have just asked you to put me with her, but since that's not the case...I choose Slytherin."

"You still choose the familiar." the hat said thoughtfully. "You couldn't choose to be with your friend, so you chose instead to be with Severus Snape."

Elizabeth just shrugged. "Well, you know what they say: when in doubt, stick with what you know."

"It's not too late to change your mind and go for Ravenclaw, you know..."

"Slytherin." Elizabeth said firmly.

"All right, then. I wish you the best of luck in...SLYTHERIN!"

This last word was shouted for all the hall to hear, though if anyone DID hear the pronouncement, Elizabeth couldn't tell.

The hall was either STILL in dead, silent shock over her speech, OR the fact that she had been sorted into Slytherin was an equally as shocking event as a first year giving a speech.

Elizabeth was betting on the latter being the case. Nonetheless, she did what she did best: she endured.

She swept the hat off her head, placed it on the stool, and went right up to Dot - who, apart from Snape, was the only one clapping (though the former was clapping FAR more enthusiastically than the latter) - and hugged her.

"Congratulations." Dot beamed at Elizabeth.

"Go Slytherin or go home." Elizabeth said flatly, before resolutely pulling away and marching off for the Slytherin table. A glance back over her shoulder revealed to Elizabeth that she had not fooled Dot for even a millisecond.

Dot was shaking her pretty blond head and clutching at her sides, deep in the throes of pure mirth.

As soon as Elizabeth crossed inside of five feet of the Slytherin table, all her Housemates suddenly came back to life, their eyes snapping to her like magnets, and then they broke into applause.

Very, very, very loud applause.

They were all grinning and smiling at her, cheering for her, and two other first year girls who had been sorted before Elizabeth (Tracy Davis and Millicent Bullstrode) made a space for her between them, and as soon as Elizabeth sat down, she was being patted on the back.

While this wasn't exactly to Elizabeth's liking - in fact, it was uncomfortable and panic-inducing - and while she did not miss those few eyes here and there, among the sea of Slytherins, that were looking upon her with loathing and with fear (though these looks had nothing at all to do with her disfigurements...), it WAS to her BENEFIT, and so she did her best to accept it all, to embrace her reception, all the while noting the faces that went along with the eyes that seemed to not at all like the fact that Elizabeth Potter had become a Slytherin.

Over at the Gryffindor table, two, twin, redheaded third year boys were looking dumbfounded.

"We didn't get Potter...?" they chorused.