"You know it's a sign of maturity to ask for help when you need it."

Harry's hand paused in her almost frantic writing and she looked across the table to Millicent with frown – offense obviously taken.

"So you think I'm immature?" She challenged, to which Millie raised her hands in surrender, though clearly amused by the hostile tone.

"That – didn't sound how I meant it. I'm just saying you should take advantage of the people offering to help." She rolled her eyes at Harry's glower. "Oh, don't look at me like that! You must have hexed half of Slytherin House in the last week alone! It's not sustainable. And I know you aren't used to letting people help you, but you should accept it where you can. It'll only make life easier."

"Yeh, until those helping hands turn to beat the shit out of you, or start asking for things in return."

"Merlin Harry, you're so cynical."

"I'm a realist." Harry had been rather Hex-happy lately. While she continued to research and develop her own understanding and uses of magic, the twins had taught her a whole range of spells to keep the wolves at bay. Ha! See, she could accept help! …when there was a clear understanding of what was required in payment. Pucey had missed a quidditch match after his feet swelled up and became heavy as rocks.

"Well what about me and Daphne? We must have offered a dozen times for you to sleep in our beds. No one would attack you with us right there, but instead of getting a decent night's sleep in an actual bed you go off and sleep Merlin-knows where." Daphne and Millie had been good to her for the most part. Millie was a half blood and Daphne came from a neutral family and Harry had learned the hard way that such things mattered. Millie herself could be quite scrappy – Harry could appreciate that. They'd even upset their long-time friends a few times by sticking up for her. She was a little moved by that, because she wouldn't have gotten involved in someone else's fight, but that didn't mean Harry was comfortable relying on them – she couldn't rely on anyone, so decided to wait it out. The aggression and hostility towards her was always there, just beneath the surface, but open attacks had been dying down as time continued to move forward, and had almost dried up completely once she started fighting back. Most of her hexes now were thrown because she really hated those looks of disgust and condescension. Icy, superior Slytherin masks she would accept, but she still had a problem with these pampered little children looking down on her. It wouldn't be long until she'd be able to booby-trap her bed, so that was something.

When Harry failed to respond, Millie sighed dramatically. "Fine, be stubborn. What are you working on anyway: 'energy transformation and conversion of magic'? Little heavy isn't it?" She asked, leaning over to read the topmost book.

"I'm just trying to get my head around the idea of magic." Harry said lightly. In truth she'd learned a lot over the last few months. As much as she hated Mr Hyde, she had been inspired and motivated by his impassioned words, and ever since had thrown herself into experimenting. One of the more basic things he'd said was particularly useful: that wizards only struggle to use magic because by the time it manifested they had become too reliant on common human abilities such as movement, and so that is always their first thought when something needed to be done. They would subconsciously direct their muscles to pick up a pen, for example, instead of directing their magic. It was only because of this lack of control that wands and spells were invented. Wands drew the wizard's energy, forcibly focusing it to one point and therefore amplifying its power. Certain wand movements made directing different types of spell easier and the words used helped the caster visualise what might otherwise seem incomprehensible or unnatural. Considering all this, Harry had taken his advice to stop placing barriers on her own imagination, to stop believing that anything was impossible.

And it was working. Slowly, but surely, her efforts were bearing fruit.

"Do you want to see?" She asked Mille tentatively, who nodded though not sure what Harry meant to show her.

Harry quickly tore a section of parchment and proceeded to draw a large, crude circle with another smaller circle in the middle, before getting up to stand it atop the fire place.

"Check this out." She said with a grin, before flipping open her knife and throwing it – it landed within the larger circle, but in the upper left corner. Millicent pulled a face.

"Erm… what am I looking at?" It was a decent throw – certainly better than she could ever hope to achieve, but about what she'd expect from her roughian friend.

"Watch." Was all Harry said as she retrieved the knife. She relaxed her posture, closed her eyes, and let out a long steady breath. What Millie couldn't see was how Harry felt out her magic, trying to imagine it as a part of her being, starting in her mind and feeling down to the tips of her finger and toes. The knife flew from her hand a second after her eyes opened and landed barely a millimetre from the bullseye.

Millie's eyebrows shot up in response. "So what was different the second time?"

Harry turned to her with a wicked self-satisfied smirk. "Magic."

It was far from perfected, but it was still an achievement and things could only get better.


While Harry had been distrustful of Dumbledore before Christmas, she outright hated him afterwards.

The old man had flat out refused to allow her to return home for the holidays, stating it would have been irresponsible for him to knowingly send a student out into the streets. She was furious. What the hell business was it of his where she went when not at school. Ok, she knew that was a little unfair, but why was it that authority always tried to interfere? She reckoned at least one other student at Hogwarts was being sent home to an abusive or negligent environment worse than hers!

To make matters even worse he'd reported her situation to the magical government and now her fate was apparently out of her hands and she really really hated that. So now she had to wait for people she didn't know to decide who of all the other people she didn't know she'd be sent to at the end of the school year. Well, whatever. She'd run away before, she could do it again and anyone who thought differently was a fool.

If that wasn't enough – and she'd made clear that it certainly was enough, he'd then gone on to hand her an invisibility cloak belonging to her father – belonging to her.

"So why do you have it?" She'd asked instantly, always assuming the worst.

"Your father left it in my possession before he died." He gave her a sympathetic smile. Snape had told him how grateful she'd seemed to have a simple vault key that had belonged to her parents, so he could only imagine how hungry she was to be given something more substantial – he wasn't prepared for her suspicious gaze.

"And why are you giving it to me now?" She asked slowly, though she hadn't hesitated to take the cloak and hold it tightly to her, as though expecting him to try to snatch it back.

"Well it's Christmas Harry."

She held his gaze easily but didn't give an inch, refusing even to react to his familiarity. "So you're gifting it to me, not returning it?" This guy was unbelievable: to stop her returning home and then 'gifting' her with something rightfully hers. Given his previous attempts to insert himself into her life, she could only assume this was another ploy. A dark outrage swirled in her eyes and wasn't missed by the wise, knowledgeable man. It seemed he was no closer to earning the girl's trust!

"I thought you might find it useful in moving about at night undetected." He eyes twinkled with mischievous indulgence and she had to fight valiantly not to tear her new cloak in irritation. So the headmaster of the school knew she was sneaking out to sleep in old classrooms and closets and waited until now to mention it – she couldn't quite get her head around that one. She thought he would have been all over this, trying to help, to come to her 'rescue', so this was odd.

Unable to deduce what he was up to, Harry avoided the subject altogether. "I guess possession being nine tenths of the law carries weight in this world too."

"There's only one world. Viewing it as two only leads to division, alienation and ignorance. The past shows us these things are most dangerous." If he couldn't tease out her cooperation, he at least had to ensure she understood this – that when the time came she chose to fight for the right side.

"Trust me, there's two." She argued with confidence. "And maybe that division is unfortunate, but that doesn't mean it's not valid."

"But we are all people, Harry – muggles and wizards alike. Any differences we have should be embraced to make us all stronger." She snorted.

"You're crazy. People, muggles, hate each other because of differences in wealth or race or anything else you can think of. From what I've seen wizards hate each other because of blood of all things! You think if muggles and wizards inhabited the same world there wouldn't be another very big reason to hate? I bet it would get real bloody real fast." He sighed heavily – at least she wasn't demonising muggles.

"Only if we allowed ignorance free reign."

"You might want to educate the kids under your care before you set out healing the world." She sneered. He was definitely out of touch with reality. God, she hated to think about what would happen if her friends new about her new world. They joked about it when it was just a bunch of strange events, and she knew a few of them would think it was awesome, but a lot more would be deeply uncomfortable, think her a freak like her family did. Then there were others she knew who wouldn't hesitate to take advantage and use her new powers for their own ends. However she imagined most people would feel threatened, and that never ended well.

"Do you hold any prejudices?" He pushed on, deciding he could find out what damage he'd need to undo.

"No, doesn't matter if you're from rags or riches, black skin or white skin – everyone's the same when they're rattling, and turning themselves inside out from both ends." No, she thought, everyone was the same: they were all weak. "I just hate people who treat me like a kid." She gave him a pointed look.

Harry didn't understand why they were even talking about this. She had that feeling again that she was missing something important and boy did it rankle. Dumbledore could see how frustrated she was getting and ended the conversation. At least he'd discerned there was no immediate threat of her turning against muggles in general and this was the longest conversation he'd had with her, so that was progress.


Voldemort hadn't asked to meet with Harry again – he was too disturbed by the slight sympathy and solidarity he'd felt for her during their last two exchanges. He could also begrudgingly appreciate the progress she was making in mastering her not insubstantial power. The girl had proved she wasn't above hurting people who challenged her, and didn't pull her punches. In any other situation she'd be a prime candidate for recruitment. There was a problem though: while she had friends in Slytherin yet mostly kept to herself, she also seemed comfortable chatting with Dunbar, whose family were persistently Light.

He watched her through Quirinus' eyes as he sat lazily at the man's desk while the children worked in groups to research vampires. The way her jaw clenched every time that mudblood Granger corrected someone or started to lecture was amusing – definitely something he could use in an effort to recruit her – which he wasn't.

Harry closed her book, abandoning all pretence of studying. She was tired, irritated and thoroughly fed up with her Defence headache. She looked to the front of the room to where Quirrell sat, apparently watching her, in a pose she knew to associate with Mr Hyde. She wanted to groan. Instead she kept her face hard and raised her eyebrows at him, before clenching her teeth and standing, grabbing her notes and walking to the front of the room.

She'd been planning to call him out on these headaches for a long time, but wasn't willing to be alone with the man unless absolutely necessary. She could use this opportunity though. The room was full of students who noisily got on with their latest project, so surely she was safe.

Approaching his desk she spoke loud enough for the nearby students to hear: "Professor, you couldn't help me with this, could you?" She placed the parchment down and leaned over it – looking to any onlooker to be drawing attention to something written, but secretly lowering her voice and glaring at her teacher.

"Could you stop? I get it, you hate me, just give it a rest already!" She hissed.

Voldemort raised his own eyebrow and leaned back as he considered her.

"I'm certain I don't know what you're talking about." That just caused her scowl to deepen.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about! These f-freaking headaches! Cut it out!"

"I assure you, I have never inflicted such a thing on you." He eyed her scar – ok, so maybe once, but that wasn't really intentional.

She noticed his eye line and scoffed loudly, drawing attention so quickly quieting down again.

"Yeh right. You have no idea why my scar hurts so badly every time I see you!" She'd believe that when pigs flew.

Her words surprised the Dark Lord. So his mere presence affected her scar, did it? How interesting… She watched with growing unease as the side of his mouth pulled up in a dark harrowing mockery of a smile.

"Sit down Harry." She opened her mouth, but he was quick to shut her down: "Unless of course you want a detention?" Too easy.

He watched her storm away with a smirk. How very interesting…