Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to Joanne Kathleen Rowling and associates, of whom I am not one. This is a rewrite of a fic from 4 years ago.
Warnings: AU, mentions of child abuse, ongoing theme of drug abuse, some character bashing (but only such that it follows canon and canon trends), spoilers through Deathly Hallows, coarse language, some minor OCs.
Chapter 8: Interest in the Future
Harry didn't attend the second task. He'd lived it, and he knew there was nothing to watch. Hadley's order had come in the day before the task, and at breakfast he noted that Ron was gone from the Gryffindor table, as was Hermione. Everything was as before. Hadley was best friends with Ron and Hermione. They sometimes spoke to Ginny or Neville. Though he noticed Hadley talk to Parvati or Lavender a bit more often than he ever had, things were the same.
If he had his way, his appearance wouldn't change anything until the night of the third task. If that didn't happen, he didn't know what would, so he didn't want to interfere much. Giving Dumbledore warnings to treat Hadley better was one thing. She needed to know the prophecy, and finally executing the Potters' will was simply a kindness. Stopping him from enhancing her emotions was a necessity.
Otherwise, he was content to make things a little easier for her. Helpful hints for the first task so that she could get ahead in points – mostly because he hoped that that extra minute lead she would have over Cedric might mean Cedric didn't grab the cup at all – and some more innocent hints about the second. If she hadn't taken his hints to heart, Dobby would have fixed it all up for her. But it was best that Snape not suspect her of stealing supplies. If his eye didn't turn to Hadley, he might even notice Moody.
But no, for now Harry only wanted things to stay as they had been. He could interfere later. Dumbledore accepted his ruse as a seer. For now, that was what mattered.
After the second task, Moody's probation was lifted and Tonks returned to her regular order duties. Harry had avoided the woman as much as possible during lessons. He still saw her corpse in the Great Hall when he looked at her. He was supposed to take care of her child.
The Serenity Solution was meant to protect him from himself, but he still had been taking it less than a year. He didn't trust it to settle things completely.
On the morning of the February Hogsmeade weekend, Harry managed to slip Hadley the parting idea that their apartments were "pet friendly" up to and including large dogs. He wondered what she thought of it, if she did anything at all. Was she still meeting Sirius in Hogsmeade today? It was amazing he'd remembered that at all, though he thought Sirius was living in a cave or something. He just remembered smuggling food and the other students asking why they hadn't seen him, Ron, and Hermione at the Three Broomsticks, or anywhere else, all day.
It was that that made Harry realize that he didn't really have a plan. Aside from the Tournament, he hadn't really remembered much of his fourth year. He'd barely remembered his fight with Ron after all, and he'd been miserable at the time. Fifth year was a similar blur. Aside from the vague ideas of Umbridge, Dumbledore's Army, Occlumency lessons, and storming the Ministry… He just didn't know.
But he didn't need a plan really. Just to tweak Dumbledore's. Giving Hadley hints and intervening was okay, and later participating would work. Harry's big plan after he arrived was making himself seem legitimate. After that, well, he was just Harry. Leave the big plans to bigger wizards.
Months passed. Harry drifted day to day. He didn't really have any advice for Hadley, nothing to make things easier that wouldn't reveal too much, that might stop her from letting Voldemort come back this time. He was sure, after she was shown the pitch's desecrated state and Fleur, rather than Krum, was attacked at the edge of the Forest, that she was training just as he had. Learning and mastering the spells that Harry had learned, that hadn't done him almost any good until the following school year when he was teaching his fellow students how to survive.
The tournament had gone well enough without too much outside interference, and Harry had NEWTs to prepare for. There was no time to help Hadley, even if he did, just once, slip her a list of spells she should have Hermione look into.
In fact, Harry didn't speak to Hadley for more than a few seconds after his remarks about Sirius. He only saw her across the Great Hall at meals, or if she was with Hermione in the library at the same time, though more often she left her friend to her study dates with Krum.
At least, until mid-June, when Hadley cornered him on his way from the bathroom after his Charms NEWT. The whites of her eyes were pink, as though she'd been crying, and there was a small purpling he could see at her left temple, the start of a bruise. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her hands trembled as she stared up at him.
"Help me, Harry," her voice was almost faint. "You're a seer, aren't you? So help me."
For Hadley, the time between tasks was almost frightening. The second task had been easy, once Harry told her to ask Neville for help. Every time he told her things like that, she found it… off. Well, everything about him was off. He didn't smile. He didn't frown. He just sort of existed, and he told her things.
At first, before the first task, she had thought that maybe he was just sneaky and smart, like Slytherins were supposed to be. She thought that he had followed Hagrid to the dragons and come up with better hints than Moody had, and that was all it was. But from what she heard he was fairly average in all of his classes except for Defense and Divination.
And then he had told her to ask her Herbology partner for help with the second task, and she thought that perhaps he was really acting as Dumbledore's indirect conduit to help her with the tasks. The other schools had them. The teachers had apparently all taken oaths over the summer that they couldn't help their champions (she did wonder how Moody managed to, but he'd been a last minute hire, so perhaps he had been exempted). It was an open secret that Poliakoff was the conduit between Karkaroff and Krum, and that one of the Beauxbatons boys, who happened to receive tutoring from Madame Maxime, tutored Fleur in kind.
It made sense. Harry's advice was all for things that Dumbledore surely knew, and in Dumbledore's style. She looked back with hesitant fondness to her first year. Dumbledore gave them the tools to catch Quirrell, gave her the privilege to face down her parents' murderer, and he was doing similar now.
And then, on the morning of her Hogsmeade trip after the Task, it all changed. With just a small handful of words, it changed drastically.
"Hey Hadley, I don't recall if I mentioned before, but the apartment is pet-friendly," Harry had walked her, Ron, and Hermione down the hill before going shopping. It was odd not to see him with the other Slytherins now. "So if you want a pet other than Hedwig… I know that one of the neighbors has a large dog. I sort of always wanted one, a big black dog would be nice. Small dogs are okay, and cats are fine, but big dogs are better. More like family, I think. Maybe a grown one, a rescue? Wouldn't want to have to paper train it, and I finally nailed the expansion charms."
It was his usual monotone. His usual lack of expression. His usual "I'm telling you something" air. And oh, Hadley understood.
Harry was telling her that he knew about Sirius, and he was offering him a home.
Quite suddenly, Hadley was frightened of Harry. Dumbledore wouldn't have told him. Not without asking Sirius and Hadley about it. There should have been no way to know. Sure, she exchanged letters with her godfather while staying with Harry, but he never saw them, and they were always to "Snuffles", never mentioned a dog… nothing.
Hermione shared Hadley's apprehension, and Ron was mostly just confused, but when Sirius noticed how rattled Hadley was, she couldn't help but tell him everything.
She had mentioned Harry before, and Sirius couldn't say much but that the photo she enclosed of Harry once did resemble her grandfather a bit. But Hadley hadn't told him about Harry. She hadn't realized there was so much to tell until she was telling it.
"He doesn't feel I don't think," Hadley began. "Harry doesn't feel. He never smiles. He never really shows concern over anything. He's never stressed, never sad, even when he was talking about traumatic things, his teacher's murder, he sounded… wistful at most. When I met him he talked a lot. If I asked him the smallest thing he'd go into this big long story, full of details. I feel like I know more about his life than I do Ron or Hermione's sometimes. He was privately taught by a local wizard because his muggle family was poor, ran away to live with his teacher because they were abusive, things like that he reveals at the drop of a hat. Or he did. Once school started he stopped. He doesn't approach me unless it's to give me a hint, and it's always the same thing. He's quiet, says something odd with a voice as flat as anything, and even if we have a conversation it's only a few minutes long.
"First time I heard him say or do something odd was my first night at his apartment. He had an extra plate out at least five minutes before Dumbledore arrived to ask after me. We talked about the Cup for a while, and he managed to guess exactly how it would go. Then when I went to Ron's for the Cup he told me to keep a hand on my wand, and it ended up getting stolen and used to summon the Dark Mark. And I think… I think he's the reason Dumbledore told me about my parents' will." She wasn't going to mention the prophecy. She hadn't even told Ron and Hermione yet. Too scared, too worried about what they might say.
"For the tournament I thought the hints he gave me weren't really from him. How would he know there was a spell I could cast that none of the other Champions could? I'm only 14! I never told him about learning the Patronus, or anything, but he knew I had a leg up on the others that could protect me. And for the second task… Harry told me months ago to partner with Neville in Herbology. I've known Neville for years and never knew he was good at anything, and then it's Neville who hands me the key to the second task."
Hadley stopped to breathe, to calm down. She was flustered. She was certain her face was red from talking to fast, and from the stress of the situation, and from the hike up the cliffside. She turned to pat Buckbeak, to even herself out again.
"I know now it can't all be coincidence," Hadley continued. "He told us on the walk to the village that the apartments are pet friendly, and when he was young he always wanted a big dog, a black one, one that's already grown and doesn't need training. It was so transparent that he knew about you, knew everything about you. He knows you're here, knows you're an animagus, knows we were coming to see you and you're innocent and my godfather and that I want to live with you more than anything and… Sirius, what if he's been blackmailing me this whole time, or planning too, and I was just too thick to notice until now? Even Dumbledore confirmed he must be family, and you're supposed to be able to trust family, right?"
Ron shifted awkwardly in the corner. Hadley didn't usually get quite this riled up, but she was scared and confused and about ten other things she shouldn't even identify. She didn't want to believe anything negative about Harry. Sure his lack of emotion was kind of creepy. And his hints were stupid and weird and right. Hermione also seemed hesitant to do anything, instead joining Hadley in patting Buckbeak, while Sirius thought.
Hadley was all too glad that her godfather had managed to come out of Azkaban with scars and wisdom instead of insanity like many released prisoners.
Though his wisdom, in this moment, seemed rather lacking. "When he gives advice, what does he do? You said he set an extra plate at the table before unexpected company arrived. Do you remember anything else?"
"Not really," Hadley shrugged. "We were sitting down to dinner and he set plates down on the table. I don't think I noticed the extra until Harry was serving the Headmaster dinner. And when he gives advice… it's weird and vague. He says… it's always weird things. To watch my wand, or be ready for trouble, sometimes. Others… other times he's more weirdly specific. He said that the Tournament is a spectator sport, and I should show what I can do that no one else can… that was for the first task, when I used my Patronus.
"He… that time he added that he'd heard that Dad had a flair for the dramatic. He didn't have anything specific like that for the second task, just told me to ask Neville. But he knew an apothecary that did owl order and carried gillyweed, too, so…"
"Does he ever get weird looks on his face? Space out and say something strange?" Hadley nodded in response to Sirius' question. A lot of the time when she saw Harry he was looking off at nothing, if he wasn't with his Slytherin study group. "He might be a seer."
"A seer? Are you off your rocker?" Ron burst out laughing. "Even Trelawney doesn't do things like that. The 'inner eye' isn't real anyway."
"Professor Trelawney teaches Divination," Hermione explained when Sirius gave Ron an odd look. "She's also a fraud if there ever was one. Hadley told us last year she gave a real prophecy, the day Wormtail escaped, but all she ever does is talk about how Hadley will die some gruesome death or another. It drove me mad enough that I dropped her class."
Sirius smiled then. "Seers are real. Sort of. I mean… your professor can't be one, if she gave a prophecy," he started explaining. "There are three sorts of connections to fate. Seers see possible futures, speakers are just people chosen by magic to act as a voice from time to time, which is what your teacher might be, and then there are real prophets who don't see it or anything but know the future. Most prophets go mad quickly and die young though, and seers are the most common, but it usually doesn't hit until majority so teaching it in school is rather pointless."
"You said they're only 'sort of' real?" Hermione's interest was apparently piqued.
Hadley's mind, meanwhile, was running through possibilities. Harry had known where she lived. He'd known Dumbledore was coming to dinner. The tasks, Sirius, he knew it all. And… hadn't he said, when he first met her, that after his majority he just had the feeling to go to Gringotts? Was that the awakening of his abilities?
It almost made sense.
"Well no one really knows what it is that makes a seer," Sirius shrugged. "Since it usually happens after majority, people think that people aren't seers so much as magic just kind of messed up when finishing them off. Others say they aren't really seeing futures so much as they have overactive, if insightful, imaginations."
"So you think Harry is a seer?" Hadley frowned at her godfather. But it made sense. How else would he know about Sirius?
"He could be," Sirius shrugged. "You might need to observe him a bit more to figure it out. But for now… I know I smelled sausages in your bag!"
Harry wasn't forgotten as the animagus feasted, but the subject was dropped in favor of more obviously dangerous things. Harry seemed benign. He hadn't hurt her. Whoever entered her into the tournament had, and she needed to protect herself.
SPEW mostly fizzled out in the coming months, though Rita Skeeter seemed to be upping the ante as Witch Weekly reported terrible and untrue things about both Hadley and Hermione. It was Fred and George who steered Hermione clear of any cursed letters, teaching her to detect anything foul in her mail before she could open it, and Katie Bell managed to wrangle a lot of the other older girls in the school to help with writing letters to the editors of both Witch Weekly and the Prophet to get them to censor their star writer.
It didn't stop Skeeter at all, but both the magazine and the paper published the letters in their editorial sections, which was better than nothing. When Hermione and Hadley received smaller than normal Easter baskets from Mrs Weasley – for Hermione because it was said she was stringing Krum along for help on the Tournament for Hadley, and for Hadley because papers claimed she was throwing Ron around like a yo-yo, things Mrs Weasley shouldn't have believed but could not abide by the mere idea of being true – they knew it really hadn't done any good.
But Hadley and Hermione endured. Hermione didn't talk about the tournament at all with Krum, so he knew there was no basis to any rumors he might hear, and Ron, in a moment of insight, made it clear that he and Hadley had never been dating, she hadn't been stringing him along, and any fights during the first term had been his fault anyway.
It made things easier in school, at least. Even if Rita Skeeter had decided to use two teenaged girls as her punching bags, at least their school mates believed better of them.
On May 24th, the champions were summoned to the Quidditch Pitch to receive their information about the third task. A labyrinth, made of what would soon be tall shrubbery, filled with creatures and enchantments capable of taking down any capable wizard. They would have to prove themselves in this labyrinth, fight their way to where Ludo Bagman was even then giving them their debriefing, and claim the triwizard cup. Because Hadley was in the lead, if only by two points, she would be given a one minute head start. Then Cedric, then Krum, and finally Fleur would be allowed in, each at one minute intervals. They were told to work hard, and practice, and no more.
After the meeting, Fleur lightly touched Hadley's shoulder before Bagman could ask for a private audience this time, causing the younger girl to stop quickly.
Fleur really was someone to be envious of. True, she was part-veela, but Hadley knew that even if she weren't Fleur would still be ridiculously pretty. As Ron had waxed poetic after getting a faceful of her vela charm, her hair was spun of noon's sun, her skin a fine porcelain, her figure finer than any Playwizard model. While Hadley wouldn't comment on the latter – though she did know Fleur's hips were wide enough to be attractive but still slim and her chest was moderately proportioned so that she was called beautiful by boys rather than having them talk about how sexy she was – the half-drugged rambling hadn't been too far off.
Fleur was a singular specimen, veela blood or no, and Hadley was terribly jealous she couldn't ever aspire to such an appearance.
"'Adley, eez zere somewhere we could talk?" Fleur's voice was light, not high or low or airy, merely "light". "I zink I 'ave some advice zat could 'elp you with your media problem."
Hadley glanced back at Bagman who still looked like he wanted to talk. It was starting to get creepy, how he was trying to help her. Not like Harry, who seemed more like a seer every day, but like Professor Moody. After Tonks left, Moody started picking on Hadley in class constantly, as Professor Lockhart had once done, using her as the text subject for spells, but also as a test caster so she started gaining experience in casting too.
It didn't take Hadley half a second to agree to go speak with Fleur.
"Unless you want to go inside, the best idea might be near the edge of the forest," Hadley decided. "No one will be by there, the forest itself is dangerous, but if we keep our wands ready and within shouting distance of Hagrid's hut we should be fine. And it's only seven, so the sun will be up for at least another hour."
"Oui, zat eez fine," Fleur agreed. "Ze castle eez… loud."
They walked quietly to the forest, stopping near its edge and perhaps thirty meters away from Hagrid's cabin. Hadley could hear a bark or two from Fang, so they had to be at a safe distance for shouting. She stopped her pace and turned to Fleur, waiting.
"Zis Skeeter woman, she eez ze worst sort of person," Fleur sighed. "She would be 'ard to fight. She eez weak, but popular, zo eef you fight 'er, you must use channels ozer zen ze ones she does. Zere are… very few newspapers 'ere. Few zat do not carry 'er, and none of zem carry any clout."
"Yeah, the only one with any readers is the Quibbler and… well, you'd have to be barmy to believe anything they print," Hadley winced at the thought. At Harry's suggestion she had approached the big eyed blond girl in Ravenclaw, apparently a friend of Ginny's, and their short conversation had been so full of imaginary creatures that Hadley didn't know where to begin. Luna had actually dismissed Hadley herself, saying that Hadley had a terrible nargle infestation that would take all summer to get rid of. Whatever that meant.
"Oui," was all Fleur said. Hadley waited. Hadn't Fleur mentioned advice was the purpose of their chat? "I 'ave… observed some students who 'ave been quoted about you doing odd things. Ze pale boy and 'is friends 'eld zere 'ands to zere mouths, and whispered. Ze young boy in ze 'ouse of Badgers did ze same, and later released a bug onto ze grounds. I believe zat Skeeter is using zese bugs to do 'er information collecting. Or else zat she-"
Before Hadley could hear the rest of Fleur's theory, though she had a feeling she knew now what it might be, a crashing came from the woods. Hadley had never really had a better judgment, so she didn't go against it when she ran to the sound.
Just past the tree line was a raggedly thin man. Bags stood out under his eyes and his skin was stretched tight across his cheeks. His eyes were wide so the white could be seen all around, and he dressed in rags. Rags with pinstripes, but rags all the same.
Barty Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, was clutching the bark of a tree so hard that the ends of his fingers bled, or perhaps they had already been bleeding. He'd lost a shoe, the sole of the one remaining worn thin, and the other foot covered in blisters, some popped. His finger nails were ragged, so torn out, his hair cut uneven, likely torn out from tangles in bushes.
"Yes Weatherby, make sure to inform them… yes, for my wife and son as well." Crouch spoke with a rapid fervor that Hadley would not have attributed him. In their previous meetings his voice had been steady and slow, and Percy had said his boss was always put together and calm.
Did he… did he think that tree was Percy?
"Isn't zat Meester Crouch? Ze judge?" Fleur's voice was quiet as she came up behind Hadley, touching her lightly before speaking to prevent any alarm. "What 'as 'appened?"
"Percy told me he was sick, sending in his work by mail, hadn't been in since early December, recovering from some nasty disease," Hadley eyed the man carefully as she said this. "It looks more like he had a mental breakdown." Or a few too many encounters with the dementors. But those were all back at Azkaban. There was no reason why Crouch would encounter them on sick leave, so why was he so…
Mad?
There was no better word for it. Madder than Moody, battier than Trelawney, Mr Crouch had obviously lost his mind sometime in the past few months.
Suddenly, Crouch turned on Hadley, leapt forward and grasped the front of her robes with his bleeding, and now obviously broken, hands. It snowballed from there. He would jump between speaking to Hadley, telling her he had to talk to Dumbledore, had to warn him, had to warn Hadley, and then he would be back to talking to the Tree Known as Weatherby about the Tournament, or attending important dinners with his wife and son.
Fleur offered to stay behind and watch him while Hadley fetched Dumbledore Fleur wouldn't know where his office was, and she didn't believe it was appropriate to have either of the foreign heads deal with the matter. Hadley was off running, thankful now for all the days Ron's laziness or Hermione's studiousness made them have to run halfway across the castle to get to class.
Snape was leaving the office as she approached, and wasted a full minute of her time before Dumbledore himself appeared. In an instant he was off running with Hadley, his long legs allowing him the same speed as her nearly, and in a fifteen minute round trip, under a darkening sky, they arrived at where she had left them.
Fleur was stunned on the ground, scratched from the bush she landed in. Crouch was gone. Soon others appeared. Moody to search, the other heads had pursued after seeing Dumbledore run. Madame Maxime was horrified as to what happened, but could take no action once her champion declared that there was to be no recompense for what had happened. The attack on her had been the act of a madman and no fault of Hogwarts or Hadley, or so she said.
Hadley was so guilt ridden though. Two days later she sent Fleur an apology and a light blue hand-knit scarf from Mrs Weasley who, after a stern letter from her sons, was all too glad to make up the temporary cold shoulder she had given to her youngest son's best friends.
Hadley couldn't dwell on it for long though. She had a task to complete, and perhaps even win. It would make Sirius so proud, after all.
Divination had never been particularly interesting, but Ron had always described it as an easy O. Percy had even said it was a good class for those looking to the future. Hadley knew now, as the last class before exams progressed, that it was a load of bollocks. Sure, knowing the future might be interesting to some. She could understand why Harry took it. She'd managed to catch rumors from the only seventh year Gryffindor in the NEWT class that Harry was top of the class in it and Trelawney's pet student.
But Hadley? Hadley had no interest in the future. She already had one prophecy looming over her head. She didn't need to know anything else. An easy O it may be, but she almost wished she was in one of Hermione's classes instead. Maybe Arithmancy. She had been decent at maths in muggle school. Now she could barely remember her times tables, or the basic algebra taught toward the end of primary, but that was just from disuse.
She could have enjoyed Arithmancy. No heady fumes from fires and candles to make her woozy. No pressing heat that made her break out in a terrible sweat and want to move as little as possible. The white noise from the buzzing of a bug by the window she sat near didn't help. All three just made her want to sleep.
She was so tired. Of the Tournament, of Trelawney, of Malfoy's constant taunting, of wondering if Harry was really a seer… she was just so tired…
If she could fly, everything would feel better. She could almost feel the wind on her face, cooling the sweat away. The thrill of diving and the way that hotter air was easier to rise on, cold air easier to dive down into. She could feel the feathers beneath her fingers…
Hadley paused at that. Feathers? She didn't feel feathers when she flew, unless one counted those few times on Buckbeak. Her eyes opened and what she saw was not the circular tower room known as the Divinations classroom, but sky darkening hours too early. The feathers under her hands were too large as she rode an eagle owl through the twilight.
Ahead, a village appeared, and a house on a hill. She recognized that house. She had seen it, once, over the summer. When she dreamed of the old muggle and Wormtail and Voldemort's horrible tiny form killing that old muggle. It was the house on the hill from her dreams.
The owl descended and lit on the sill of a window, tapping urgently on the pane. Wormtail came to collect it, not seeing the tiny form of Hadley resting on the bird's back. He took the letter and left the owl where it was, taking the parchment not halfway across the room to an old wingback chair that sat before the fireplace.
It was Voldemort's high voice that spoke then. Saying a mistake had been fixed. That Wormtail's folly would not end his plans.
Then there was the cruciatus. Wormtail's pain was Hadley's and it was terrible.
And then she woke up.
Before her, everything was a blur. Her head ached something fierce, white hot pain lancing through the center of her forehead and behind her eyes. Her brain was on fire, her nerves still felt the ghost of Wormtail's pain.
It took a minute for her to realize she was on her back on the floor, staring at the ceiling and the concerned faces of her housemates as they tried to get her to respond. It was Trelawney's sudden insistence that Hadley had had a vision, had seen some portent of the future, of her own grizzly death to come, that snapped Hadley out of her stupor.
"I didn't. It wasn't… I dozed off, and got a migraine," she defended, reaching out a hand to Ron to be helped up. "My head hurts. I think I'm allergic to some herb in these candles. Please, can I go get a head ache cure from Madame Pomfrey?"
"My dear, you musn't cloud your mind with potions! That way lies true blindness," Trelawney balked at the idea. "Stay. Stay and share what you have seen!"
"I didn't see anything!" Hadley bit out. It was harsher than she intended and she fought to rein herself in. "I really must be allergic to something. I can barely breathe and I think I might vomit. Please let me go."
Before the Professor could protest more, Hadley left the room. She left Ron behind too. She couldn't face him right now.
How could she face anyone after that? She had seen something. There was no explaining it. She had thought that maybe the first dream was a fluke, all those months ago. There had been no repeat performance. It was just a nightmare that triggered pain in her scar.
But twice…
Fool me twice, shame on me, Hadley's mind chimed in for her. It wasn't inaccurate. There was something more to this. What if it was sight? What if she was a seer like Harry?
Merlin, now she really did want to throw up. She staggered to the nearest loo and pressed her forehead to the glass, willing the pain away. What could she do? Before the details drained away she had to tell someone. She had to do something. But what?
I could go to the Headmaster, was her first thought, but she brushed it off. He would be busy. For the NEWT and OWL students it was already exam time. Other exams were starting in two days. She rifled through her bag, pulling out the Marauders' Map eyes skimming quickly through the dots. She was barely familiar with who half of them even were, could ignore them, until she found the dot she wanted, the one that could help her.
Four floors down, headed approximately for the blokes' loo on that floor. Slow pace. He must have just left his practical exam. Hadley ripped herself from the mirror she hadn't even looked in, not seeing the desperate look in her eyes as she sped through the hall, dodging what few students were not already buried in tomes for study. She took shortcuts she knew well, and one the map suggested that she hadn't ever noticed before. By the time she reached the right floor, Harry's dot was leaving the loo, apparently headed for the Library.
She stopped him.
He stood composed. As always the only expression on his face was a momentary befuddlement before clarity set in and he seemed once again all-knowing and impenetrable. It was infuriating most of the time.
Right now it was the most comforting sight in the world. She may not find him likeable or trustworthy, but Harry always knew what was happening.
"Help me, Harry," Hadley wished she wasn't so winded from her sprint down. "You're a seer, aren't you? So help me."
It was hardly half a breath before Harry shook his head. "Not here. Meet me after dinner on the seventh floor in front of the portrait of Barnabus the Barmy. For now, go talk to Dumbledore. He needs to know what happened before I can help you." He turned on his heel and continued on to the library leaving Hadley lost and confused and determined.
Author's Note: I'm going to repeat my request - does ANYONE know any good fem!Harry fanfiction aside from Girl in the War? Because it is honestly the only interesting, well-written, non-creepy paired one I can find. I don't care if it's a crossover (assuming I know the other fandom). But I have gone through several archives and found diddly squat. If the plot is interesting, the writing and relationships are terrible. If the relationships are good, the rest is bland. If it's well written, it is always something weird like Harry/fem!Harry or a very much older adult male and a too young to be legal fem!Harry and I'm sorry but incest and pedophilia do not make me a happy reader. Suggestions please?
I lost my entire three week buffer. Blame boyfriend, D&D, family visiting, Skyrim, runescape, this thrice damned heat… if it exists, you can probably blame it. But mostly family, Skyrim, and boyfriend. Especially my boyfriend. He saved over my almost 100% complete file of FF9 (so I had to do it over) and then borrowed my laptop for a week… and let me borrow his Xbox so I could be Dovahkiin.
So much Dovahkiin. So little fanfiction.
Sorry if Fleur's accent is weird. I don't know what sort of French accent she's written with, so I'm just writing my aunt's accent. (You spend a month living with your family in Europe and see if you don't have a fair image of a specific accent in your head!) Also, I kind of really wanted her to just levitate Crouch to the castle, but decided against it because it wasn't in the plan it would fuck up the next chapter or two too much.
Also - broke 100,000 profile views. I feel popular. (Who am I kidding I haven't been popular in 2 years.)
